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1  DIVINE  RIGHT 
ii  DEMOCRACY 


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BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 
Temperance  Sermons. 

The  Cyclopedia  op  Temperance,  Prohi- 
bition, AND  Public  Morals  (Coeditor 
with  Deets  Pickett). 


The  Divine  Right 
of  Democracy 


OR 


The  People's  Right  to  Rule 


A  STUDY  IN  CITIZENSHIP 

BY 

CLARENCE  TRUE  WILSON 


THE  ABINGDON  PRESS 
NEW  YORK  CINCINNATI 


Copyright,  1922,  by 
CLARENCE  TRUE  WILSON 


Printed  In  the  United  States  of  America 


The  Bible  text  used  in  this  volume  is  taken  from  the  American  Standard 
Edition  of  the  Revised  Bible,  copyright,  1901,  by  Thomas  NeLson  &  Sons, 
and  is  used  by  permission. 


DEDICATION: 

TO  MY  WIFE, 

INSPIRER  OF  MY  PLANS  AND 

COMPANION  OF  MY  TOILS, 

WHO  HAS  HELPED  ME  TO  LIVE 

WHAT  I  HEREIN  TEACH— 

DEMOCRACY 


CONTENTS 

FAQB 

I.  The   Forgotten  Source  of  Our  Fed- 
eral Constitution 9 

II.  Building    American    Democracy  Into 

Government 31 

III.  Jesus  Christ,  The  Embodiment  of  Dem- 

ocratic Ideals 46 

IV.  Is    the    United   States    a    Christian 

Nation? 63 

V.  Pagan  Inroads  on  American  Democ- 
racy      82 

VI.  The  Function  of  Law  in  Civil  Gov- 
ernment       99 

VII.  The  Latest  Evolution  of   American 

Democracy 118 

Bibliography 141 


i 


THE  FOEGOTTEN  SOUECE  OF  OUR 
FEDEEAL  CONSTITUTION 

Foe  twenty-five  years  I  have  been  reading 
law  books.  They  include  the  works  of  the 
greatest  lawyers  who  have  ever  written  on 
their  chosen  branches  of  learning,  such  as 
Cooley,  on  the  Principles  of  the  Constitution: 
Constitutional  Limitations;  Bishop  on  "Con- 
tract Law,"  "Non-Contract  Law,"  "Criminal 
Law,"  "Marriage  and  Divorce" ;  and  more  re- 
cently the  great  works  on  the  Constitution  and 
its  origin  by  Hannis  Taylor ;  by  C.  E.  Stevens, 
on  the  Sources  of  the  ConstituJbion  of  the 
United  States;  and  William  M.  Meigs,  on  The 
Growth  of  the  Constitution.  It  is  amazing 
that  in  their  search  for  sources,  their  study  of 
origins,  it  never  seemed  to  dawn  upon  one  of 
them  that  they  should  look  to  the  one  Book 
that  was  familiar  to  all  the  makers  of  the  Con- 
stitution. The  Bible  was  the  book  from  which 
in  childhood  they  were  taught  to  spell,  the 
book  from  which  they  took  their  first  reading 
lesson,  which  became  the  law  book  of  the  col- 
onies and  the  classic  in  the  home,  the  book  that 

9 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OP   DEMOCRACY 

was  consulted  by  lawyers  for  precedents,  by 
judges  for  decisions,  by  orators  for  eloquence, 
by  literary  men  for  style,  by  historians  for 
facts,  by  lawmakers  for  models. 

In  thirty  works  that  I  have  read  on  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  not  an  intima- 
tion has  appeared  that  our  fathers  in  the 
formation  of  our  government  drew  upon  their 
knowledge  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  of  the 
Law  of  Moses,  or  of  the  teachings  of  Christ. 
It  might  be  expected  that  the  sacred  books  of 
one's  religion  would  at  least  so  color  his 
thoughts  that,  if  not  consciously,  then  un- 
consciously, he  would  be  influenced  in  his  ex- 
periments of  making  a  new  government. 

Some  writers  have  traced  the  American 
Constitution  to  the  instincts  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon;  some  to  the  experiments  of  the  New 
England  town  meeting;  some  to  the  experi- 
ence in  the  struggles  of  thirteen  colonies  with 
environments,  mother  governments,  and  abo- 
rigines, the  internal  disturbances  in  their  in- 
dividual struggles  toward  unity  and  attempted 
harmony  with  their  fellow  colonists ;  and  they 
account  for  our  Constitution  as  the  sum  total 
of  these  worked-out  results. 

Other  writers  are  emphatic  and  elaborate 
in  their  conclusions  and  proof  that  the  writ- 
ten Constitution  of  the  United  States  is  purely 

10 


THE  FORGOTTEN  SOURCE 

the  outgrowth  of  the  English  unwritten  Con- 
stitution, but  Campbell  has  written  a  great 
work  of  two  massive  volumes  on  The  Puritan 
in  Holland,  England,  and  America  to  show 
that  the  essential  principles  of  our  Constitu- 
tion were  borrowed  from  Holland  during  the 
short  stay  of  our  New  England  ancestors 
there,  and  that  these  principles  came  over  in 
the  Mayflower  and  were  transplanted  in  Amer- 
ica from  Holland. 

Hannis  Taylor  goes  back  through  all  these 
influences  and  a  hundred  more  and  finds  the 
germs  of  our  republican  form  of  government  in 
the  so-called  republics  of  Greece  and  Rome, 
republics  that  were  not,  in  our  sense,  republics 
at  all,  but  experiments  in  self-government  by 
the  aristocracy;  for  not  one  sixth  of  the  men 
of  voting  age  ever  had  the  right  to  the  ballot ; 
the  slaves,  the  serfs,  the  women,  were  excluded 
and  others  w^ho  might  be  in  disfavor.  Our 
fathers  knew  one  thousand  times  more  about 
Moses  than  they  did  about  Plato,  or  Aristotle, 
or  Solon,  or  Lycurgus.  They  were  saturated 
with  the  teaching,  the  principles  of  the  laws 
of  Moses,  and  the  writings  of  the  prophets  and 
apostles.  Never  in  one  sentence  does  this  most 
learned  author  intimate  that  they  might  have 
been  influenced  by  these  scriptural  authorities 
rather  than  by  the  rare  learning  of  the  few 

U 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT  OF   DEMOCRACY 

who  had  a  familiarity  with  the  classic  writers. 

Almost  every  standard  work  on  the  origin 
of  the  Constitution  and  government  of  the 
United  States  learnedly  traces  the  develop- 
ment of  all  the  germs  of  democracy  in  Egypt, 
Babylonia,  Assyria,  Greece,  and  Rome, 
through  our  Anglo-Saxon  ancestors  into  the 
English  common  law,  and  then  from  the  com- 
mon law  to  our  federal  Constitution.  But,  if 
they  are  Roman  Catholic  in  their  training, 
they  laboriously  belittle  the  influence  of  the 
English  common  law  in  favor  of  the  Roman 
civil  law,  and  attribute  all  the  growth  of  the 
equity  idea  in  our  courts  to  Rome,  in  order  to 
lay  the  foundation  for  a  claim  that  the  United 
States  Constitution  and  federal  enactments 
owe  more  to  the  Roman  civilization  than  to 
the  British. 

I  am  thoroughly  convinced  that  both  of 
these  claims  are  in  error.  After  many  years 
of  reading  the  great  authors  in  jurisprudence 
I  am  impressed  that  their  desire  to  keep  church 
and  state  absolutely  separate  has  led  them 
afield,  even  to  the  extreme  denial  or  to  utterly 
ignoring  the  influence  of  religion  in  the  forma- 
tion of  our  Union.  It  must  not  be  overlooked 
that  our  fathers,  when  they  sat  down  to  form 
the  Constitution,  had  veiy  little  knowledge  of 
Greek  or  Roman  law ;  none  of  Assyrian,  Baby- 

12 


THE  FORGOTTEN  SOURCE 

Ionian,  or  Egyptian.  There  was  only  one  Book 
that  every  man  in  that  convention  knew  from 
cover  to  cover,  that  they  had  been  raised  with 
from  earliest  childhood,  and  derived  their 
earliest  and  latest  impressions  from,  and  that 
volume  was  the  Hebrew  Bible  or  Christian 
Scriptures.  From  this  book  came  their  first 
ideals  of  human  equality,  of  universal  brother- 
hood, of  racial  relationship,  of  the  inherent 
capability  of  mankind  for  self-government. 
They  learned  these  principles  of  nature  from 
the  texts,  and  got  their  object  lessons  from  a 
w^hole  race  experimenting  on  these  methods  of 
government. 

All  the  religious  convulsions  that  shook 
Europe  during  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries  had  to  have  an  outlet,  and  men  nat- 
urally turned  to  America.  Her  newly  planted 
colonies  invited  the  oppressed,  the  agitated, 
and  the  determined  to  come  to  this  land  and 
on  this  free  soil  form  a  nation  of  religious 
toleration,  where  men  could  think  and  let 
think  and  respect  each  other's  rights  to  differ. 
This  new  soil  and  new  outlook  furnished  the 
theater  for  the  action  of  these  agitating  forces, 
where  the  votaries  of  independent  religious  be- 
liefs could  worship  God  according  to  the  dic- 
tates of  their  own  conscience.  Every  one  of 
the  eighteen  languages  used  in  the  religious 

13 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF   DEMOCRACY 

controversies  of  Europe  was  spoken  in  our 
American  settlements,  and  each  agitation  was 
represented  here.  A  distinctly  religious  basis 
was  furnished  for  every  one  of  the  thirteen 
colonies  that  formed  our  Union,  for  their  citi- 
zens had  come  here  to  worship  God  according 
to  the  freedom  of  their  own  convictions.  They 
believed  in  the  individual  responsibility  of  the 
free  will.  They  had  few  books,  but  they  each 
owned  a  Bible.  They  taught  their  children 
letters,  spelling,  and  reading,  from  its  sacred 
pages.  They  learned  ethics  and  etiquette,  law 
and  government,  as  well  as  theology,  by  its 
profound  study.  It  was  a  treasury  from  which 
they  drew  the  very  words  that  they  remem- 
bered as  a  classic,  and  to  find  men  in  several 
of  the  colonies  who  knew  their  Bibles  from 
cover  to  cover  was  not  difficult. 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  they  formed  the  freest, 
most  moral,  and  most  prosperous  Christian 
nation  of  the  world?  They  did  not  write  the 
name  of  God  in  the  Constitution,  nor  organize 
a  state  church,  but  a  failure  to  mention  the 
name  of  Deity  is  no  proof  of  disbelief  in  him. 
The  book  of  Esther  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
studies  in  Divine  Providence,  but  it  nowhere 
mentions  the  name  of  God.  Thousands  of  reso- 
lutions are  passed  every  year  in  preachers' 
meetings,  Conferences,  and  Synods,  that  do 

14 


THE  FORGOTTEN  SOURCE 

not  mention  the  name  of  the  Deity.  Our 
fathers,  coming  from  the  Old  World,  where 
they  had  been  oppressed  by  state  churches 
through  enforced  religious  conformity,  wisely 
determined  to  follow  Christ's  statements,  "My 
kingdom  is  not  of  this  world,"  "The  kingdom 
of  heaven  is  within  you,"  and  Paul's  declara- 
tion, "The  kingdom  of  God  is  righteousness, 
peace,  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Spirit."  Knowing, 
therefore,  that  the  Kingdom  is  spiritual  and 
Cometh  not  with  observation,  they  took  all 
trammels  off  religion,  gave  it  a  free  field,  pro- 
tected its  votaries  in  worship,  and  granted  re- 
ligious toleration  to  all.  Believing  that 
Christ's  kingdom  can  stand  alone,  they  gave 
it  free  access  to  all  hearts,  homes,  schools, 
courts,  legislatures,  and  enthroned  it  in  the 
sentiments  of  men.  Washington  took  his  oath 
of  office  with  the  Bible  in  his  hand.  When  a 
witness  steps  upon  the  stand,  when  a  judge 
promises  to  mete  out  justice,  when  an  execu- 
tive promises  to  enforce  our  laws,  it  is  upon 
that  Book,  whose  teachings  have  made  us,  and 
calling  upon  that  God  whose  we  are  and  whom 
we  serve,  that  the  affirmation  is  made.  The 
weekly  observance  of  the  Lord's  Day,  the  cele- 
bration of  all  the  days  of  Christ — as  Easter 
and  Christmas — the  annual  observance  of 
Thanksgiving  and  prayer  in  times  of  national 

15 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF   DEMOCRACY 

distress,  the  sentiment  on  every  dollar  with 
which  we  pay  our  debts,  "In  God  We  Trust," 
proclaim  with  the  supreme  court  of  the  land 
that  "this  is  a  Christian  nation." 

But  above  all  of  these,  when  our  fathers  met 
in  Philadelphia  to  form  the  federal  govern- 
ment they  copied  every  principle  and  modeled 
every  plan  from  that  ancient  government, 
when  God  alone  was  King  and  Moses  wrote  his 
law  in  deathless  enactments,  constitutional 
and  statutory,  for  ancient  Israel.  The  anal- 
ogy between  that  divine  model  and  our  Amer- 
ican Constitution  is  worthy  of  a  patriotic  at- 
tention which  it  has  never  had. 

Clement  wrote  in  distinct  terms  that  Plato 
got  the  idea  of  his  republic  from  Moses  and 
then  showed  the  correspondence  between  the 
two.  In  both,  God  was  King,  virtue  was  the 
chief  requirement,  and  men  were  to  be  broth- 
ers. Now,  we  know  that  the  government  of 
Moses  was  the  first  of  its  kind  ever  founded  on 
earth.  In  every  other  known  to  history,  the 
king's  or  ruler's  mind  was  the  supreme  law, 
and  life,  death,  and  property  were  in  his  hands 
alone.  In  Egypt,  M^here  Moses  was  born, 
monarchy  was  supreme,  and  there  was  nothing 
in  his  surroundings  to  suggest  a  pure  democ- 
racy or  republican  forms.  Yet  for  four  hun- 
dred and  seventy  years,  or  longer  than  the  time 

16 


THE  FORGOTTEN  SOURCE 

from  our  day  to  the  date  when  Columbus  dis- 
covered America,  Israel  had  no  king,  and  when 
they  rebelled  and  insisted  on  the  establish- 
ment of  a  monarchy  they  were  told  it  would 
be  their  national  destruction,  and  that  their 
acceptance  of  an  earthly  king  was  a  rejection 
of  God  as  their  King. 

"And  Jehovah  said  unto  Samuel,  Hearken 
unto  the  voice  of  the  people  in  all  that  they 
say  unto  thee ;  for  they  have  not  rejected  thee, 
but  they  have  rejected  me,  that  I  should  not 
be  king  over  them"  (1  Sam.  8.  7).  "Now 
therefore  hearken  unto  their  voice:  howbeit 
thou  shalt  protest  solemnly  unto  them,  and 
shalt  show  them  the  manner  of  the  king  that 
shall  reign  over  them.  And  Samuel  told  all 
the  words  of  Jehovah  unto  the  people  that 
asked  of  him  a  king.  And  he  said.  This  will 
be  the  manner  of  the  king  that  shall  reign  over 
you :  he  will  take  your  sons,  and  appoint  them 
unto  him,  for  his  chariots,  and  to  be  his  horse- 
men; and  they  shall  run  before  his  chariots; 
and  he  will  appoint  them  unto  him  for  cap- 
tains of  thousands,  and  captains  of  fifties ;  and 
he  will  set  some  to  plow  his  ground,  and  to 
reap  his  harvest,  and  to  make  his  instruments 
of  war,  and  the  instruments  of  his  chariots. 
And  he  Tvill  take  your  daughters  to  be  per- 
fumers, and  to  be  cooks,  and  to  be  bakers. 

17 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF   DEMOCRACY 

And  he  will  take  your  fields,  and  your  vine- 
yards, and  your  oliveyards,  even  the  best  of 
them,  and  give  them  to  his  servants ;  .  .  .  and 
ye  shall  be  his  servants.  And  ye  shall  cry  out 
in  that  day  because  of  your  king  whom  ye  shall 
have  chosen  you ;  and  Jehovah  will  not  answer 
you  in  that  day.  But  the  people  refused  to 
hearken  unto  the  voice  of  Samuel;  and  they 
said.  Nay;  but  we  will  have  a  king  over  us, 
that  we  also  may  be  like  all  the  nations,  and 
that  our  king  may  judge  us,  and  go  out  before 
us,  and  fight  our  battles."  Was  there  ever  a 
prophecy  of  a  future  curse  more  thoroughly 
fulfilled  in  our  world's  history? 

It  was  said  of  a  certain  king  that  he  made  of 
the  nation  a.  solitude  and  called  that  "Peace" ; 
and  our  patriarch.  Job,  always  reverent  to- 
ward God,  was  bitter  toward  kings  when  he 
said,  "The  kings  of  the  world  build  solitudes," 
or,  as  the  American  Revised  Version  translates 
it, 

"With  kings  and  counselors  of  the  earth. 
Who  built  up  waste  places  for  themselves." 

(Job  3.  14.) 

This  is  both  a  historic  and  a  philosophic 
statement,  for  the  rule  of  kings  is  the  rule  of 
ruin.  God  made  man  for  self-government. 
The  lordship  of  kings  has  never  been  by  di- 

18 


THE  FORGOTTEN  SOURCE 

vine  right,  but  by  human  usurpation.  When 
God  governed  Israel  for  four  hundred  and 
seventy  years  "Every  man  did  that  which  was 
right  in  his  own  eyes,"  enjoyed  liberty  under 
law  and  maintained  a  primitive  democracy. 
These  rulers  of  ancient  Israel  were  called 
"judges";  and  it  was  not  because  God  favored 
kings  that  he  permitted  Samuel  to  give  Israel 
a  king,  but  because  he  respected  the  rights  of 
free-will  and  human  choice  and  believed  it  was 
better  that  humanity  should  be  self-governed 
though  governed  wrongly  than  to  be  forced 
into  obedience  to  the  divine  law  if  it  left  the 
human  mind  a  mere  automaton.  So  he  told 
Samuel  to  let  them  have  their  way  and  the 
kings  of  Israel,  like  the  kings  of  all  the  earth, 
"built  solitudes." 

They  wasted  the  substance  of  the  people; 
they  took  away  their  personality  and  their 
freedom;  they  oppressed  them  with  taxes  and 
burdens  too  heavy  to  be  borne,  burdens  which 
no  one  of  them  would  have  touched  with  his 
little  finger;  they  reversed  the  divine  order  of 
things  and  instead  of  serving  the  people,  the 
people  have  been  their  subjects;  they  ruled, 
not  for  the  good  of  the  many,  but  to  build  up 
family  lines,  immense  wealth,  classes  of  flat- 
terers and  intriguing  satellite's;  they  flaunted 
unearned  gains  before  the  covetous  eyes  of  man 

19 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF   DEMOCRACY 

while  the  race  has  eaten  dust  and  bowed 
before  the  scepter  of  tyranny.  Glutted  with 
the  blood  of  the  oppressed,  they  sought  other 
worlds  to  conquer  and  became  ambitious  to  be 
known  as  "world  rulers''  and  not  as  the  serv- 
ants of  the  people  who  supported  them. 

If  one  were  asked  to  name  the  two  most  co- 
lossal blunders  in  government,  the  greatest 
heresies  of  the  human  mind,  the  errors  that 
have  caused  more  misery  than  any  two  that 
ever  found  lodgment  in  the  human  race,  what 
would  they  be?  I  should  say  that  the  first  is 
that  there  could  be  such  a  thing  as  a  royal 
family  or  any  fictitious  line  of  demarkation 
between  a  ruler  and  his  people  that  separates 
the  masses  from  the  classes,  the  plebeians  from 
the  Roman  patricians,  the  barbarians  from 
the  Greeks.  When  God  made  man  capable  of 
self-government,  endowing  him  with  the  tre- 
mendous prerogative  of  freedom,  enabling  him 
to  select  his  own  rulers,  he  put  in  him  an  in- 
born discontent  with  anything  like  oppression 
or  any  assumption  of  authority  over  him.  Our 
Master  protested  against  this  when  he  taught : 
"The  lords  of  the  Gentiles  exercise  dominion, 
but  it  shall  not  be  so  among  you,"  and  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  declares  that 
"governments  derive  their  just  powers  from 
the  consent  of  the  governed";  and  under  any 

20 


THE  FORGOTTEN  SOURCE 

form  of  government  where  there  is  an  as- 
sumption of  right  to  rule  without  the  consent 
of  the  governed,  "Resistance  to  tyrants  is 
obedience  to  God." 

Rulership  by  hereditary  right  implies  that 
you  can  tell  the  character  and  capability  of  a 
man  by  the  line  of  his  ancestors — a  fool's  con- 
ception, for,  if  anyone  thinks  it  true,  let  him 
tell  me  why  Adam  should  beget  a  Cain ;  David 
an  Absalom,  or  anybody  a  Judas?  We  in 
America  would  not  select  a  son  even  of  Lincoln 
for  an  elective  office  on  the  basis  of  his  father's 
merit.  Where  are  Shakespeare's  sons,  or  Mil- 
ton's, or  Sir  Isaac  Newton's?  Would  it  not 
be  as  sensible  to  scrape  up  some  descendant  of 
theirs  and  arbitrarily  make  him  our  poet  or 
scientist,  as  to  select  a  ruler  by  inheritance? 
No  man  was  ever  made  good  enough  to  govern 
a  community  without  that  community's  con- 
sent. 

Democracy  may  make  its  mistakes,  and  re- 
publican forms  of  government  may  disappoint 
their  advocates  in  many  respects,  but  misgov- 
ernment  by  the  people  is  infinitely  better  than 
misgovernment  by  hereditary  rulers,  for  the 
people  have  a  right  to  do  what  they  will  with 
their  own.  If  they  make  mistakes,  they  can 
correct  them,  and  it  is  their  business  whether 
things  are  right  or  wrong.    Our  government 

21 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF   DEMOCRACY 

is  founded  on  one  fundamental  principle — the 
innate  capability  of  man  for  self-government. 
This  is  in  harmony  with  the  divine  intent  when 
the  Creator  said,  "Let  us  make  man  in  our 
image,  .  .  .  and  let  them  have  dominion." 
When  humanity  works  out  this  ideal  into 
forms  of  government,  man  must  select  his 
rulers  by  virtue  of  their  merit  through  direct 
choice  of  the  governed.  But  monarchy  is  built 
on  selected  families  and  inherited  prerogatives 
— as  fundamental  an  error  as  was  ever  devised 
by  human  folly. 

The  second  governmental  heresy  is  the  law 
of  primogeniture,  which  implies  that  the  eld- 
est son  of  the  royal  family  is  born  with  the 
ruler's  prerogative.  This  universal  misstep 
which  gives  an  eldest  son  a  ruler's  place  by 
birthright  has  ignored  merit  and  deprived  gov- 
ernment of  genius.  Many  times  in  real  life  we 
have  known  the  oldest  son  to  be  far  surpassed 
intellectually  and  morally  by  the  seventh, 
ninth,  or  thirteenth  boy.  John  Wesley  was 
the  sixteenth,  and  his  poet  brother,  Charles, 
was  born  later  still. 

The  American  idea  of  selecting  rulers  by 
merit  and  not  by  birthright  is  from  the  Scrip- 
tures. In  contradistinction  from  every  other 
nation  known  to  history,  the  Hebrew  TJible 
ignores  the  universal  custom  and  blazes  a  trail 

22 


THE  FORGOTTEN  SOURCE 

to  independence.  For  from  Abel  to  David,  a 
period  of  three  thousand  years,  in  not  a  single 
instance  where  God  chose  the  ruler,  or  the 
progenitor  of  a  race,  or  the  ancestor  of  a  Mes- 
siah, did  he  choose  the  eldest  son.  Our  fathers 
studied  their  Bible  and  established  a  govern- 
ment whose  rulers  were  chosen  by  suffrage. 
Where  did  they  get  the  idea  that  there  was 
nothing  in  primogeniture?  Why,  their  favor- 
ite Book  showed  that  Cain  was  the  first  born, 
but  Abel  was  chosen  and  his  older  brother  re- 
jected. Shem,  the  younger,  was  preferred  to 
Japheth.  Isaac  was  chosen  and  not  his  older 
brother,  Ishmael.  Esau  and  Jacob  were  twins, 
but  before  the  birth  God  told  their  mother, 
"Two  people  shall  be  born  of  thee,  and  the  one 
people  shall  be  stronger  than  the  other  people 
and  the  older  shall  serve  the  younger";  and 
Jacob  was  chosen  instead  of  Esau.  In  Jacob's 
family  there  were  twelve  sons,  and  God  passed 
by  the  three  elder  and  chose  Judah,  the  fourth 
son,  to  be  the  progenitor  of  Christ  and  to  es- 
tablish Judaism;  he  passed  by  ten  brothers 
and  advanced  Joseph  to  be  the  ruler,  thus  mak- 
ing the  eleventh  son  the  preferred  of  the  family. 
Then  Ephraim,  the  youngest  son  of  Joseph, 
was  preferred  before  Manasseh. 

When  Joseph  brought  his  two  sons  to  his 
aged  and  blind  father  to  receive  the  blessing, 


THE   DIVINE   EIGHT   OF  DEMOCRACY 

he  took  Manasseh,  the  elder,  to  his  father's 
right  hand  to  receive  his  chief  blessing,  but  the 
patriarch,  crossing  his  hands  wittingly,  put  his 
right  hand  on  the  head  of  the  younger  to  con- 
fer the  chief  blessing,  but  Joseph,  thinking  his 
father  was  making  a  mistake,  objected,  and 
tried  to  remove  his  father's  right  hand  to  the 
oldest  son,  when  the  patriarch  said,  "I  know 
it,  my  son,  but  his  younger  brother  is  the 
greater."  Moses,  the  younger,  was  made 
leader,  not  Aaron.  When  Saul  was  deposed 
and  the  prophet  Samuel  was  sent  to  the  house 
of  Jesse  to  anoint  the  king,  in  accordance  with 
human  custom  he  arose  to  anoint  Eliab,  the 
oldest,  but  he  was  told  to  stop,  and  informed 
that  "man  looketh  on  the  outward  appearance 
and  God  looketh  on  the  heart."  Six  sons  were 
successively  brought  in  and  refused,  but  David, 
the  seventh  and  youngest,  was  chosen.  From 
this  it  is  easy  to  see  what  influenced  the  fram- 
ers  of  our  Constitution  to  make  our  form  of 
government,  especially  when  we  consider  that 
ours  was  the  first  government  that  was  ever 
formed  by  Bible-reading  men. 

Where  did  our  fathers  get  the  notion  that 
they  could  found  a  government  on  the  very  re- 
verse of  this  universal  custom  of  selecting  rul- 
ers by  heredity  and  birthright?  There  was 
one  exception  in  ancient  times — the  Hebrew 

24 


THE  FORGOTTEN  SOURCE 

people — and  only  one  book — the  Bible — that 
taught  that  rulers  should  be  selected  by  merit 
and  not  by  birthright.  If  perfect  resemblance 
is  an  evidence  of  identity,  the  histories  of  the 
Hebrew  and  the  American  Constitutions  are 
identical,  as  the  two  instruments  form  a  per- 
fect parallel. 

Both  countries  were  under  a  foreign  ruler 
and  both  resulted  from  a  marked  deliverance 
from  oppression. 

Both  set  up  monumental  testimony  to  per- 
petuate that  deliverance  in  the  observance  of  a 
national  holiday,  or  holy  day,  one  in  the  insti- 
tution of  the  Pa.ssover,  the  other  in  the  observ- 
ance of  the  4th  of  July  as  Independence  Day. 

Both  observed  their  national  holiday  sa- 
credly. 

The  Hebrews  had  twelve  tribes  or  states, 
for  Joseph  was  divided  between  Ephraim  and 
Manasseh,  all  merged  in  one  general  govern- 
ment. We  had  thirteen  colonies  formed  into 
a  more  perfect  Union. 

From  these  twelve  tribes  seventy  represen- 
tatives were  chosen,  constituting  the  supreme 
tribunal  (Exod.  18.  17-27),  and  the  right  of 
appeal  was  recognized  from  all  lesser  judges 
up  to  this  supreme  court;  and  our  country  has 
followed  them  in  making  the  judges  of  our 
courts  supreme,  giving  them  final  authority 

25 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF   DEMOCRACY 

over  even  the  President  and  both  houses  of 
Congress. 

For  four  hundred  and  seventy  years  they 
had  no  king,  and  when  they  rebelled  and  in- 
sisted on  a  king  they  were  warned  that  it 
would  be  their  national  destruction.  All  this 
period  they  were  ruled  by  judges,  men  divinely 
endowed  and  then  selected  by  the  people;  and 
our  own  land  is  the  only  one  since  that  day 
that  has  been  ruled  by  judges;  we  put  our  su- 
preme court  ahead  of  the  President,  Cabinet, 
Senate,  Congress,  army,  or  navy. 

The  constitution  of  Israel  and  our  own  are 
the  only  two  ever  submitted  to  a  people  for 
ratification.  They  voted  on  and  adopted  theirs 
at  the  fords  of  the  Jordan.  We  composed  and 
submitted  ours  at  the  banks  of  the  Delaware. 

They  are  the  only  two  constitutions  that 
ever  made  provision  for  the  naturalization  of 
foreigners.  Strangers  could  become  as  home- 
born  by  swearing  away  their  allegiance  to  for- 
eign potentates  and  strange  gods,  and  yielding 
obedience  to  the  God  of  the  Hebrews.  They 
were  known  as  reborn  or  "naturalized";  and 
it  was  with  reference  to  this  process  conducted 
by  the  elders  that  our  Lord  said  to  Nicodemus, 
"Art  thou  a  ruler  in  Israel,  and  knowest  not 
these  things?" 

While  making  ample  provision  for  inducting 
26 


THE  FORGOTTEN  SOURCE 

a  foreigner  into  citizenship,  these  constitu- 
tions were  the  only  two  that  forever  prohibited 
a  foreigner  from  holding  the  chief  executive 
office.  "Thou  mayest  not  put  a  foreigner  over 
thee,  who  is  not  thy  brother,"  meaning  one  of 
the  children  of  Israel  (Deut.  17.  15),  and  our 
fathers,  beginning  with  the  first,  ended  with 
the  last  of  these  provisions,  which  forever  bars 
a  foreign-born  citizen  from  being  President  of 
the  United  States. 

In  all  these  essential  features  we  see  the  sev- 
eral great  principles  of  the  Jewish  government 
transferred  to  our  own  as  clearly  as  we  can  see 
every  lineament  of  our  mother's  face  trans- 
ferred by  the  artist's  skill  to  the  photo. 

The  Old-Testament  Scriptures  gave  our 
fathers  the  political  ideals  that  they  formu- 
lated into  our  Constitution.  The  Hebraic 
commonwealth  forbade  all  caste  and  class  dis- 
tinctions, and  America  is  founded  on  equality 
before  the  law. 

It  required  that  all  people  should  be  equal, 
and  provided  against  any  ecclesiastical  aristoc- 
racy by  making  the  priesthood  dependent  for 
their  subsistence  upon  the  voluntary  contribu- 
tions of  the  people,  and  we  follow  them  in  our 
absolute  separation  of  church  from  state  sup- 
port. 

They  surrounded  their  monarchy  with  care- 

27 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF   DEMOCRACY 

fully  framed  constitutional  safeguards,  most 
of  which  we  copied  into  our  government. 

They  organized  the  government  into  three 
departments — legislative,  executive,  and  ju- 
dicial. Our  fathers  made  this  idea  the  corner 
stone  of  the  republic. 

They  provided  two  representative  assemblies 
corresponding  to  our  House  of  Representatives 
and  our  Senate. 

They  made  provision  simple  but  not  inef- 
fective both  for  public  charity  and  for  public 
education.  Our  charity  and  school  systems, 
taken  from  them  in  germ,  have  been  the  won- 
der of  the  modern  world. 

They  surrounded  two  known  evils,  slavery 
and  polygamy,  with  such  restrictions  that  both 
had  disappeared  from  among  the  Jewish  peo- 
ple before  the  time  of  Christ,  and  our  govern- 
ment has  been  the  freest  forum  for  reforms 
known  to  man. 

Their  lawbook  has  warned  against  intoxi- 
cants and  taught  the  principles  of  total  ab- 
stinence and  prohibition,  and  that  old  Hebrew 
planting  has  just  come  to  fruition  in  our  own 
land  through  the  Eighteenth  Amendment. 

Where  shall  we  find  a  simpler  and  more  com- 
pact statement  of  the  spirit  which  should  ani- 
mate and  the  principles  which  should  control 
organized  society  than  will  be  found  in  the  Ten 

28 


THE  FORGOTTEN  SOURCE 

Commandments:  reverence  for  God,  respect 
for  the  Sabbath,  the  seventh  portion  of  our 
time  systematically  saved  from  drudgery  for 
rest  and  spiritual  development,  and  regard  for 
the  four  fundamental  rights  of  man — the 
rights  of  person,  of  property,  of  family,  and 
of  reputation? 

These  facts  and  parallels  remind  us  afresh 
that  our  fathers  Avere  the  first  group  of  Bible- 
reading  men  who  ever  sat  down  to  devise  a 
new  form  of  government,  and  it  is  easy  when 
you  consider  the  history  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers 
and  the  religious  antecedents  of  the  other  set- 
tlers of  the  New  World  to  understand  the  part 
the  Bible  must  have  played  in  the  development 
of  our  government  and  in  guiding  our  fathers 
in  the  avoidance  of  the  two  colossal  blunders 
of  all  of  the  nations,  enabling  them  to  steer 
safely  between  these  rocks  into  the  haven  of 
democracy. 

Shall  this  Book,  read  at  the  making  and 
signing  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
and  whose  underlying  principles  were  copied 
into  the  Constitution  of  the  government;  the 
Book  that  Washington  kissed  when  inaugu- 
rated President,  and  on  which  all  our  rulers 
have  taken  their  oath  of  office  and  all  wit- 
nesses and  juries  have  sworn  to  be  true  and 
just — shall  this  Book  be  excluded  from  our 

29 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF   DEMOCRACY 

public  schools  to  gratify  foreigners  or  even 
home-born  citizens  who  owe  supreme  alle- 
giance to  a  foreign  potentate?  Never!  Not  in 
the  name  of  a  sect  or  even  in  the  interest  of 
religion,  but  in  the  cause  of  patriotism,  con- 
sistency, and  common  honesty  we  demand  that 
the  Book  that  made  us  shall  not  now  be  placed 
under  the  ban. 


30 


II 


BUILDING  AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY 
INTO  GOVERNMENT 

Aristotle  said  that  "Solon  bestowed  upon 
the  people  as  much  power  as  was  indispensa- 
ble— the  power  to  elect  their  own  magistrates 
and  to  hold  them  to  accountability.  If  the 
people  have  less  than  this  they  will  not  re- 
main tranquil ;  they  will  be  in  slavery  and 
become  hostile  to  the  constitution."  Surely, 
the  American  people  are  entitled  to  and  are 
capable  of  using  as  much  power  as  the  Atheni- 
ans of  twenty-five  hundred  years  ago.  They 
could  elect  and  remove  magistrates  at  will. 
This  is  democracy. 

The  supremacy  of  the  people  is  the  founda- 
tion of  this  government.  This  principle  is 
engraved  on  all  our  hearts  by  the  pen  of  Jef- 
ferson, the  speech  of  Henry,  and  the  sword  of 
Washington.  It  is  inscribed  on  the  soul  of 
man  by  a  greater  artist,  by  God  Almighty,  w^ho 
said:  "Let  us  make  man  in  our  image;  .  .  . 
and  let  them  have  dominion." 

The  Creator,  therefore,  endowed  man  with 
the  tremendous  prerogative  of  freedom  and 

31 


THE   DIVINE   EIGHT   OF  DEMOCRACY 

meant  that  he  should  govern  himself,  and  the 
greatest  battle  waged  since  then  has  been  be- 
tween the  utterly  antagonistic  forces  of  those 
who  would  rule  men  and  those  who  con- 
tend for  the  right  of  man  to  rule  himself. 
First,  the  cause  was  defeated  by  a  petty  tyrant 
assuming  to  himself  the  role  of  dictator  and 
lording  it  over  God's  sons  and  daughters  with 
the  motto,  "Might  makes  right."  Then  the 
God-like  spirit  reasserted  itself  and  threw  off 
the  yoke,  and  human  freedom  got  another 
chance. 

Another  stage  was  reached  when  the  race 
adopted  hereditary  monarchs.  Passing  by 
merit  in  selecting  rulers  and  hinging  all  on 
birthright,  it  ignored  the  real  sovereign,  the 
people,  and  inaugurated  some  degenerate  who 
represented  the  rotten  remnant  of  a  long  line 
of  petted  and  pampered  aristocracy.  With 
the  fiction  of  the  divine  right  of  kings  it  held 
down  the  people  from  their  inalienable  rights 
and  quoted,  "The  king's  mind  is  the  only  law." 

But  our  fathers,  studying  their  Bibles  and 
feeling  the  common  instincts  of  human  nature, 
turned  away  from  all  this  subterfuge  and  de- 
termined to  found  a  nation  on  the  fitness  of 
mankind  for  self-government.  They  inter- 
preted this  principle  in  these  words :  "All  men 
are  created  equal.    They  are  endowed  by  their 


BUILDING  AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY 

Creator  with  certain  inalienable  rights.  To 
secure  these,  governments  are  instituted 
among  men,  deriving  their  just  powers  from 
the  consent  of  the  governed.  Whenever  any 
form  of  government  becomes  destructive  of 
these  ends  it  is  the  right  of  the  people  to  abol- 
ish it,"  and  "Resistance  to  tyrants  is  obedi- 
ence to  God." 

They  instituted  this  new  government  in  such 
form  as  to  them  seemed  likely  to  effect  their 
safety  and  happiness.  Listen  to  them  again : 
"Appealing  to  the  Supreme  Judge  of  the  world 
for  the  rectitude  of  our  intentions,  we  do  in 
the  name  and  by  the  authority  of  the  good  peo- 
ple of  these  colonies  solemnly  publish  and  de- 
clare that  these  United  States  are,  and  of  right 
ought  to  be,  free  and  independent  States." 
When  a  Constitution  was  to  be  formed  for 
them,  who  did  it?  "We,  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  in  order  to  secure  the  blessings 
of  liberty  to  ourselves  and  our  posterity,  do 
ordain  and  establish." 

God  is  a  democrat.  As  Supreme  Ruler, 
King  of  kings,  and  Lord  of  lords,  he  said,  "Let 
us  make  man  in  our  image,  after  our  likeness : 
and  let  them  have  dominion  over  .  .  .  all  the 
earth."  Thus  he  endowed  humanity  with  the 
tremendous  prerogative  of  freedom,  the  power 
of  choice,  the  right  to  rule  and  the  inherent 

83 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF  DEMOCRACY 

ability  for  self-government.  When  he  planned 
our  guidance,  it  was  not  as  automatons  but 
as  freemen,  not  by  arbitrary  rules  but  by  ap- 
peal to  the  sovereign  will,  through  intellect 
and  emotions.  It  was  a  spiritual  mission  to 
which  he  called  Abraham.  Civilization  started 
in  a  garden  but  it  culminates  in  the  cities. 
It  is  an  evolution.  After  this  call  to  the  spirit 
had  developed  through  the  patriarchal  period, 
there  followed  the  five  hundred  years  of  primi- 
tive democracy  under  the  judges.  But  Israel 
wanted  something  more  tangible  than  an  in- 
visible king.  This  desire  for  a  visible  embodi- 
ment of  authority  has  been  the  limitation  of 
democracy  and  the  curse  of  religion.  "Make 
us  a  king,  that  we  may  be  like  the  nations," 
they  said  to  Samuel.  "Let  us  have  priests 
to  pray  for  us,  and  altars  and  images  to  em- 
body religious  thoughts  for  us,  and  a  hierarchy 
to  do  our  thinking  for  us,"  say  the  dupes  of 
religious  superstition  and  dependency  to  ec- 
clesiastics who  lord  it  over  mankind.  During 
the  periods  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  legalism 
came  into  the  State.  Priests  gained  ascend- 
ency over  the  prophets  and  mastered  the  mind 
of  Judaism  until  it  could  not  understand 
John  the  Baptist  or  appreciate  the  spiritual 
teaching  of  Jesus. 
The  study  of  that  five  hundred  years  of  his- 

34 


BUILDING  AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY 

tory  in  a  primitive  democracy  with  a  repub- 
lican form  of  government,  will  show  that  God 
alone  was  King,  that  he  never  shared  the  pre- 
rogative with  a  human  being,  that  the  He- 
brews were  called  to  demonstrate  two  things 
before  the  whole  world :  monotheism,  and  that 
to  set  up  a  king  was  to  reject  Jehovah  from 
reigning  over  them.  For  he  had  just  as  truly 
called  them  to  teach  the  nations  democracy 
as  he  had  called  them  to  reveal  an  ethical 
theocracy  to  the  world.  Their  national  mis- 
sion, therefore,  was  to  demonstrate  that  there 
was  nothing  in  that  hollow  pretense  from  the 
realm  of  evil,  "the  divine  right  of  kings,"  but 
that  the  divine  right  of  government  inheres  in 
the  people. 

During  a  period  of  four  hundred  and 
seventy  years,  or  longer  than  the  time  since 
Columbus  discovered  America,  there  was  no 
king  in  Israel.  How  remarkable  it  was  for 
Israel  to  be  democratic  amid  universal,  orien- 
tal, despotic  monarchy  I  They  were  as  dis- 
tinctly called  by  the  voice  of  God  and  by 
Divine  Providence  to  carry  democracy  to  the 
world  as  they  were  to  teach  an  ethical  mono- 
theism to  the  nations.  And  what  fools  they 
were  after  a  successful  experiment  of  many 
generations  to  wish  to  have  a  king  and  be  "like 
all  the  nations"  of  the  earth  (1  Sam.  8.  4,  5). 

36 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF   DEMOCRACY 

If  Israel  had  been  loyal  to  her  high  mission 
of  developing  democracy  and  working  out  the 
experiment  of  government  under  republican 
forms,  it  would  have  revolutionized  the  his- 
tory of  the  world ;  and  the  ages  would  not  have 
had  to  wait  three  thousand  years  for  this  di- 
vinely inspired  ideal  to  be  worked  out  by  forty- 
eight  sovereign  States  under  the  federal  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States. 

The  mental  gymnastics,  the  acrobatic  per- 
formances of  the  authors  who  try  to  find  the 
model  of  American  democracy  in  Greece  and 
Rome  would  be  pitiful  if  it  were  not  for  the 
element  of  humor.  Greece  and  Rome  were  not 
democracies  in  our  sense.  In  their  struggles 
toward  self-government  they  never  conceived 
the  idea  of  more  than  one  sixth  of  the  people 
having  any  vote  or  any  voice.  There  is  only  one 
model  of  a  pure  democracy  where  human  lib- 
erty was  for  all,  where  there  were  no  serfs,  no 
aristocracies,  no  ruling  classes  and  no  dis- 
franchised citizens,  where  a  republican  form 
of  government  was  adopted  with  constitu- 
tional provisions  and  statutory  enactments 
and  submitted  to  the  people  for  ratification. 
The  laws  of  God  are  the  foundation  of  our  com- 
mon law,  acknowledged  so  by  Blackstone  and 
other  eminent  lawyers. 

With  the  exception  of  the  first  two  com- 
36 


BUILDING  AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY 

mandmeiits,  which  are  excluded  because  of  our 
Constitutional  clause  favoring  religious  free- 
dom, we  find  the  following  parallels  between 
the  divinely  given  Ten  Commandments  and  the 
laws  of  the  modern  democracies : 

"Thou  shalt  not  take  the  name  of  Jehovah 
thy  God  in  vain'' — Profanity  in  public  is  a 
misdemeanor  punishable  by  fine  or  imprison- 
ment or  both. 

"Remember  the  Sabbath  day,  to  keep  it 
holy-' — At  the  present  time  there  is  a  strong 
movement  throughout  the  length  and  breadth 
of  the  land  for  a  "Sabbath  Rest"  law\  A  law 
that  will  preserve  the  true  Sabbath  intent. 

"Honor  thy  father  and  thy  mother" — Public 
institutions  are  maintained  wherein  incorrigi- 
ble children  may  be  placed  by  their  parents  for 
reformation. 

"Thou  shalt  not  kill" — Murder  is  a  crime 
punishable  by  death  or  life  imprisonment. 

"Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery" — Adul- 
tery is  a  crime  punishable  by  fine  or  imprison- 
ment or  both,  and  is  one  of  the  few  universally 
recognized  pleas  for  divorce. 

"Thou  shalt  not  steal" — Theft  is  a  crime 
punishable  by  fine  or  imprisonment  or  both. 

"Thou  shalt  not  bear  false  witness  against 
thy  neighbor'' — An  attempt  to  blacken  and 
ruin  the  reputation  or  good  name  of  another 

37 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT  OF  DEMOCRACY 

by  false  representation  is  an  acknowledged 
cause  of  action.  Also,  perjury  is  a  crime  pun- 
ishable by  fine  or  imprisonment  or  both. 

"Thou  shalt  not  covet  thy  neighbor's  house, 
thou  shalt  not  covet  thy  neighbor's  wife,  nor 
his  man-servant,  nor  his  maid-servant,  nor  his 
ox,  nor  his  ass,  nor  anything  that  is  thy  neigh- 
bor's"— All  of  these  are  crimes  punishable  by 
fine  or  imprisonment  or  both,  and  are  acknowl- 
edged causes  of  civil  action  for  damages. 

It  may  surprise  the  average  Christian 
reader  to  know  that  Thomas  Paine,  who  was 
one  of  the  most  dashing  characters  and  virile 
writers  in  our  pre-Revolution  period,  in  a  vol- 
ume entitled  Common  Sense,  gathers  up  these 
lessons  from  a  study  of  the  Hebrew  Bible  and 
most  effectively  tells  the  story  that  Gideon, 
one  of  the  judges,  after  his  marvelous  success 
in  a  battle  with  the  Midianites,  was  offered  the 
kingship  of  the  Hebrew  race.  They  besought 
him  that  he  and  his  son  and  his  son's  son  might 
reign  over  them.  But  Gideon,  imbued  with 
the  divine  principle  of  the  inherent  right  of 
man  to  be  his  own  sovereign  under  the  sole 
sovereignty  of  God,  declined  the  offer  for  him- 
self and  his  sons,  saying,  "I  will  not  reign  over 
you,  and  my  sons  shall  not  reign  over  you,  but 
God  shall  reign  over  you." 

Some  of  our  fathers  loved  to  tell  how  this 
38 


BUILDING  AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY 

Bible  story,  so  effectively  told  by  Paine  in  his 
Common  Sense,  was  a  favorite  narrative  of 
George  Washington,  Father  of  his  Country. 
After  the  Revolution  and  the  utter  failure  of 
the  Articles  of  Confederation  to  hold  the 
States  together  so  that  they  could  function  as 
a  nation,  when  many  of  the  leading  spirits  of 
the  country  determined  that  this  land  should 
have  a  head,  and  offered  George  Washington 
the  position  of  king,  Washington  quoted  this 
same  precedent  from  the  ancient  Hebrew  story 
as  a  reason  why  he  could  not  think  of  such  a 
thing  as  being  a  party  to  the  breakdown  of 
this  democracy  under  a  republican  form,  or 
to  the  establishment  of  the  royal  prerogative 
on  this  sacred  soil  of  freedom. 

Those  who  are  fond  of  tracing  these  historic 
relationships  will  be  greatly  interested  in  an- 
other precedent  that  Washington  had  before 
him,  from  the  same  book.  There  was  One 
whose  matchless  teaching  and  miracles  of 
power  and  mercy  so  won  the  hearts  of  the 
people  that  they  came  in  multitudes  to  him 
beseeching  him  to  reign  over  them,  and  upon 
his  refusal  came  and  met  him  as  he  entered 
into  the  gat^s  of  the  city,  spreading  palm 
branches  at  the  feet  of  the  beast  he  rode,  cry- 
ing, "Hail,  Master,  King  of  the  Jews,"  and 
sought  by  force  to  make  him  a  king.    But  he 

89 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF   DEMOCRACY 

turned  from  the  trappings  and  ideals  of  roy- 
alty and  assured  them  that  "his  kingdom  was 
not  of  this  world,"  that  the  kingdom  of  God 
was  a  kingdom  above  all  other  princi- 
palities, that  it  was  spiritual  in  its  nature, 
and  that  he  would  not  merge  it  with  any  secu- 
lar government.  If  his  vicegerents  had  always 
followed  this  precedent,  some  of  the  darkest 
and  bloodiest  deeds  of  human  history  would 
never  have  been  perpetrated. 

An  interesting  side  light  upon  the  origin  of 
our  government  is  seen  in  the  attitude  of  cer- 
tain churches  toward  republican  forms  of 
democracy.  The  ideal  of  Jesus  is  still  inade- 
quately realized  in  certain  types  of  Chris- 
tianity. Democracy  and  republican  forms  have 
had  rough  sledding  wherever  the  dominating 
religion  has  been  Roman  Catholic,  and  have 
had  their  only  free  and  successful  opportuni- 
ties of  growth  where  the  soil  has  been  pre- 
pared by  a  democratic  church,  teaching  the 
simple  Bible  ideals  of  government  for  church 
and  state. 

Why  did  the  French  Revolution,  that  started 
out  with  the  words  "Liberty,  equality,  fra- 
ternity," wind  up  with  infantry,  cavalry,  and 
artillery?  How  starting  with  democracy  did 
it  find  issue  in  a  practical  despotism?  How 
account  for  a  land,  thoroughly  united  in  a 

40 


BUILDING  AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY 

patriotic  desire  to  establish  a  republic  in  the 
heart  of  Europe,  going  back  to  absolute  mon- 
archy and  making  a  sorry  spectacle  of  democ- 
racy before  the  whole  world,  while  the  Amer- 
ican colonies,  oppressed  from  without  and  di- 
vided wdthin,  formed  the  greatest  self-govern- 
ing nation  in  the  annals  of  time?  The  most 
satisfactory  explanation  is  that  America  made 
her  experiment  under  the  influence  of  a  free 
church,  free  schools,  open  Bibles,  colonial  in- 
dependence, the  Puritan  Sabbath,  and  Chris- 
tian home  life.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  France, 
with  as  many  patriots,  had  to  work  out  her 
experiment  with  her  common  people  untaught 
by  Bible  reading  at  the  fireside,  her  masses  of 
men  untrained  in  the  free  schools,  which  are 
the  prerequisite  to  successful  republican  forms, 
and  her  leaders  thwarted  by  the  intrigues  of 
a  priesthood,  dominated  and  saturated  with 
oligarchical  systems  and  monarchical  ideals. 
If  France  makes  a  success  of  a  republic,  she 
must  do  it  Tvith  the  opposition  of  the  dominant 
religion.  America  has  made  a  success  of  her 
experiment  because  she  has  had  the  stimulus 
of  a  democratic  church,  governed  by  republi- 
can forms  and  surrounded  by  a  Bible-reading 
people. 

A  more  interesting  side  light  still  is  to  re- 
call that  of  the  eighteen  languages  that  were 

41 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF  DEMOCRACY 

used  in  the  religious  controversies  that  shook 
Europe  three  or  four  centuries  ago  all  were 
represented  in  the  American  colonies.  Every 
religious  agitation  sent  representatives  of  its 
best  blood  here  to  find  a  free  field  for  the  exer- 
cise of  its  faith.  Of  our  thirteen  colonies  that 
formed  the  Union  every  one  had  a  religious 
basis.  But  one  finds  in  a  careful  and  compara- 
tive study  of  the  varied  influence  and  attitude 
of  the  several  state  churches  this  interesting 
thing — that  the  more  democratic  the  church, 
the  more  thoroughly  it  was  identified  with  our 
Revolution  and  with  our  new  government;  and 
the  more  nearly  it  veered  off  into  monarchical 
forms  of  government,  the  more  it  opposed  the 
new  movement  for  breaking  loose  from  King 
George  and  the  British  crown.  The  descend- 
ants of  the  Puritans  of  New  England  were  the 
leaders.  The  Congregationalists  of  Connecti- 
cut, the  Baptists  of  Rhode  Island,  the  Quakers 
of  Pennsylvania,  the  Swedes  of  Delaware,  the 
Methodists  of  Georgia  and  Maryland  were  for 
the  Revolution,  for  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, for  the  Constitution.  The  Catholics 
of  Maryland  were  indifferent,  divided  by  two 
feelings — opposition  to  the  British  crown  be- 
cause it  was  Protestant,  and  fear  of  republican 
forms  of  government  because  they  were  in- 
consistent with   their   church   teaching.     So 

42 


BUILDING  AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY 

what  was  done  for  the  government  by  the  Epis- 
copal patriots  of  Virginia  and  the  patriotic 
Catholics  of  Maryland  was  done  in  spite  of 
the  church  and  its  leaders.  But  what  was  done 
in  New  England  and  the  Central  States  and 
everywhere  that  Presbyterians,  Congi'egation- 
alists,  Methodists,  and  Quakers  were  numeri- 
cally strong,  was  done  with  the  enthusiastic 
help,  approbation,  and  leadership  of  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  democratic  churches. 

Still  another  interesting  side  light  was  the 
attitude  our  patriotic  fathers  showed  in  re- 
sponse to  things  ecclesiastical.  Where  the 
church's  attitude  was  friendly  toward  the 
Revolution,  the  Declaration,  and  the  Consti- 
tution they  were  friendly  at  the  close  of  the 
war  toward  the  church ;  but  where  the  attitude 
of  the  church  showed  a  strong  preference  for 
monarchical  forms,  as  against  our  republic,  we 
find  that  patriotic  leaders  by  the  score  lost  in- 
terest in  organized  religion  and  became  anti- 
church.  Tom  Paine,  before  the  Revolution, 
wrote  the  most  devout  documents  and  the  most 
scriptural,  and  founded  his  whole  ideal  of 
government  upon  the  teachings  of  the  Bible; 
but  after  becoming  sour  because  of  the  High- 
Church  and  Tory  attitude  of  the  Virginia 
clergy  and  their  loyalty  to  the  State  Church  of 
England,  and  after  crossing  to  France  and  ex- 

43 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OP   DEMOCRACY 

periencing  the  opposition  of  the  Romish 
Church  to  the  new  republic  there  forming,  he 
came  back  and  wrote  his  Age  of  Reason. 

Thomas  Jefferson,  who  wrote  his  Declara- 
tion calling  upon  God  and  acknowledging  his 
superintendence  over  us,  became  so  indifferent 
to  the  church  that  by  many  he  is  considered 
almost  an  agnostic,  although  this  belief  has 
never  been  sustained  by  the  facts.  Numerous 
other  men,  trained  in  Virginia  and  brought 
into  constant  conflict  with  the  Tory  clergy, 
by  the  time  they  came  to  form  the  Constitution 
had  grown  so  indifferent  to  ecclesiastical 
forms  as  representative  of  religion  that  there 
is  a  secular  tone  in  the  literary  composition 
of  the  Constitution  which  is  entirely  missing 
in  the  Declaration  of  Independence  earlier 
signed  by  these  same  men. 

The  church  is  the  world's  Bible.  Every  man 
who  is  outside  the  church  has  standards  which 
he  thinks  the  church  should  be  measured  by. 
No  responsibility  is  greater  than  that  of  study- 
ing out  just  what  civic  duties  the  church  of 
Christ  must  have.  If  it  fails  to  meet  these  ob- 
ligations in  time  of  crisis,  it  will  make  skeptics 
of  the  most  thoughtful  and  conscientious  men. 

One  of  the  most  pathetic  lines  in  the  biog- 
raphy of  Lincoln  was  the  utter  failure  of  the 
clergy  of  Springfield  to  give  him  any  support 

44 


BUILDING  AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY 

when  he  knew  he  was  representing  in  his  own 
campaigns  the  only  moral  issue  there  was,  and 
he  said:  "I  know  that  I  am  right,  and  these 
principles  of  freedom  are  taught  in  the  Bible, 
and  yet  of  the  thirty  or  more  clergy  only  one 
or  two  is  supporting  me.  I  cannot  understand 
it.''  The  same  indifference  alienated  the  af- 
fection of  Lloyd  Garrison  and  Wendell  Phil- 
lips from  the  church  as  a  saving  institution; 
and  to  those  people  who  think  the  church  may 
lose  in  being  too  aggressive  in  the  temperance 
reform  and  in  other  civic  matters,  we  say: 
"Better  offend  the  wicked  by  an  aggressive 
fight  with  them,  and  compel  their  respect  as 
a  power  for  civic  righteousness,  than  lose  the 
good,  true,  and  noble  by  failing  to  do  the  ut- 
most possible  in  helping  them  to  make  this  a 
better  world  here  and  now." 


45 


Ill 


JESUS  CHRIST,  THE  EMBODIMENT  OF 
DEMOCRATIC  IDEALS 

One  half  of  the  world  is  newly  making  the 
experiment  of  self-government — Austria,  Ger- 
many, Russia,  China,  Poland,  Czeeho-Slovakia. 

In  every  breast  is  that  same  urge  to  freedom 
that  impelled  our  fathers,  that  propels  us  on, 
and  that  makes  you  an  American  patriot. 

The  thought  of  the  day,  the  trend  of  the 
centuries,  is  to  make  the  earth  democratic. 
The  reign  of  the  common  people  is  at  hand; 
they  are  reaching  for  the  scepter  and  the  es- 
tablishment of  their  rights,  powers,  and  privi- 
leges. Autocratic  governments  of  church  and 
state  must  go.  Even  representative  gov- 
ernments have  been  a  disappointment.  Popu- 
lar government  is  the  slogan  for  the  day.  This 
is  not  a  spasm  of  sentiment  nor  a  sudden  im- 
pulse. It  is  the  evolution  of  the  ages,  develop- 
ing that  initial  impulse  that  God  planted  when 
he  made  us  all  to  have  dominion,  and  greatly 
accelerated  when  the  Greatest  of  the  great 
identified  himself  with  the  humblest  of  the 

46 


JESUS  AND  DEMOCRATIC  IDEALS 

humble.  Then  democracy  became  real ;  it  was 
shown  to  be  rooted  in  the  divine  will  so  that 
anyone  who  sought  the  wisdom  and  spirit  of 
Jesus  Christ  would  know  that  it  was  ordained 
of  God.  When  he  came  his  introduction  was 
not  to  King  Herod,  the  reigning  monarch; 
nor  to  Pilate,  the  Roman  governor;  nor  to 
Caesar,  but  to  the  band  of  faithful  shepherds 
keeping  watch  over  their  flocks  by  night. 

All  the  forces  that  put  the  leverage  of  de- 
mocracy under  humanity  and  lifted  us  to  the 
altitude  we  occupy  to-day,  were  born  in  the 
manger  of  Bethlehem.  The  enfranchisement 
and  establishment  of  man  is  the  work  of  the 
nail-pierced  hand.  No  unprejudiced  mind  can 
fail  to  note  that  every  charter  of  liberty  which 
has  been  wrung  from  the  hands  of  greed  and 
selfishness  during  the  past  thousand  years  has 
been  closely  related  to  the  Man  of  Nazareth 
and  the  gospel  he  gave  mankind.  Had  it  not 
been  for  Jesus,  for  what  he  said  and  did  and 
was,  our  boasted  civilization  could  not  have 
been.  You  and  I  would  now  be  the  bondsmen 
of  cruel  masters  and  the  slaves  of  tyrants. 

We  are  proud  of  our  modern  democracy  and 
our  American  civilization,  but  it  has  not  al- 
ways been  what  it  now  is.  As  we  look  at  the 
path  we  have  trod,  the  distance  we  have  come, 
and  the  forces  which  have  impelled  us  forward, 

47 


THE  DIVINE   EIGHT   OF  DEMOCRACY 

we  discover  at  the  head  of  every  advance  the 
Captain  of  our  Salvation.  It  is  a  long  dis- 
tance from  the  stone  pillars  and  the  bloody 
altars  of  the  Druid  temples  to  the  beautiful 
and  spiritual  worship  of  our  sanctuaries, 
"none  daring  to  molest  or  make  us  afraid." 
There  have  been  many  bloody  battles,  many 
painful  crosses  between  the  two,  but  amid  the 
din  of  danger  and  the  scorching  fires  of  every 
persecution  there  has  arisen  some  leader 
whose  tongue  of  fire  has  been  inspired  by  the 
love  of  Jesus  calling  men  to  a  higher,  purer, 
and  better  life.  And  they  have  not  toiled  in 
vain.  Mankind  has  grown,  human  liberty  has 
advanced,  the  race  has  been  emancipated,  and 
the  religion  of  Jesus  in  divine  accord  with  na- 
tional democracy  has  promoted  all  these  rights 
of  man. 

What,  then,  is  the  relation  of  Jesus  Christ 
and  his  gospel  to  these  democracies?  He  is 
the  founder  of  them.  They  proceed  from  him. 
He  is  the  source,  the  life,  the  soul  of  them  all. 
Without  what  he  did  and  said  and  was,  they 
never  could  have  been.  He  never  made  democ- 
racy a  formal  topic  of  discourse.  Our  phrases, 
"the  democracy  of  knowledge,"  "the  democ- 
racy of  art,"  "the  democracy  of  politics"  are 
not  found  on  his  lips.  Nevertheless,  Jesus  is 
the  creator  and  the  architect  of  democracy. 

48 


JESUS  AND  DEMOCRATIC  IDEALS 

It  would  not  be  difficult  to  show  that  the 
New  Testament  is  a  handbook  of  democratic 
principles,  Jesus  could  not  preach  the  doc- 
trine of  God's  Fatherhood  without  reverting 
to  human  brotherhood.  He  was  asked  once, 
"What  is  the  greatest  commandment?"  His 
answer  was  that  there  were  two,  and  not  one. 
A  theologian  might  have  answered,  "The  great 
commandment  is,  'Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord 
thy  God  with  all  thy  heart.'"  But  Jesus 
added,  "The  second  is  like  unto  the  first :  *Thou 
shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself.' "  This 
was  startling  doctrine  to  Jews  who  called  Gen- 
tiles dogs,  to  Greeks  who  called  all  others  bar- 
barians, to  Romans  who  called  all  others 
Plebes;  but  Jesus  built  Christianity  on  the 
doctrines  of  race  equality  and  human  brother- 
hood. 

When  Jesus  came  to  deal  with  the  people 
his  favorite  term  for  himself  was  "The  Son  of 
man,"  a  term  that  is  the  most  democratic  that 
could  be  put  into  human  speech.  Not  "The 
Son  of  a  king"  or  of  a  priest,  or  of  a  royal 
family,  or  of  a  class,  or  of  a  nation,  but  "The 
Son  of  man."  He  told  how  the  rabbis  made 
"broad  their  phylacteries,  and  enlarged  the 
borders  of  their  garments,  and  love  the  chief 
place  at  feasts,  and  the  chief  seats  in  the  syna- 
gogues,  and   the   salutations  in   the  market 

49 


THE  DIVINE   RIGHT  OF  DEMOCRACY 

places,  and  to  be  called  of  men  Rabbi.  But 
be  not  ye  called  Rabbi :  for  one  is  your  teacher, 
and  all  ye  are  brethren.  And  call  no  man  your 
father  on  the  earth:  for  one  is  your  Father, 
even  he  who  is  in  heaven.  Neither  be  ye  called 
masters:  for  one  is  your  master,  even  Christ. 
But  he  that  is  greatest  among  you  shall  be 
your  servant.  And  whosoever  shall  exalt  him- 
self shall  be  humbled;  and  whosoever  shall 
humble  himself  shall  be  exalted"  (Matt.  23. 
6-12). 

On  another  occasion:  "There  arose  also  a 
contention  among  them,  which  of  them  was  ac- 
counted to  be  greatest.  And  he  said  unto 
them,  The  kings  of  the  Gentiles  have  lordship 
over  them ;  and  they  that  have  authority  over 
them  are  called  Benefactors.  But  ye  shall  not 
fee  so:  but  he  that  is  the  greater  among  you, 
let  him  become  as  the  younger ;  and  he  that  is 
chief,  as  he  that  doth  serve.  For  which  is 
greater,  he  that  sitteth  at  meat,  or  he  that 
serveth?  is  not  he  that  sitteth  at  meat?  but  I 
am  in  the  midst  of  you  as  he  that  serveth" 
(Luke  22.  24-27). 

One  needs  only  to  read  the  life  of  Jesus  in 
the  four  Gosi>els  to  be  perfectly  saturated  with 
the  principles  of  democracy,  the  equality  of 
men,  the  dignity  of  the  poor,  the  stricken,  the 
sinful  and  the  diseased,  and  of  the  humilia- 

60 


JESUS  AND  DEMOCRATIC  IDEALS 

tion  of  those  who  wore  purple  if  the  life  was 
sinful. 

If  one  will  study  the  treatment  of  Herod 
Antipas,  of  the  governor  Pilate,  and  of  the 
high  priest  before  whom  Jesus  stood,  and  will 
see  the  utter  contempt  for  the  trappings  of 
authority  that  the  Son  of  man  displayed,  he 
will  see  that  the  greatest  Democrat  that  ever 
walked  the  earth  never  cringed  before  arbi- 
trary authority. 

On  one  occasion  some  elated  disciples  came 
to  Jesus  with  the  good  news  that  he  had  a 
royal  caller.  Herod,  the  king,  stood  outside 
desiring  to  see  him.  Christ  turned  for  a  mo- 
ment from  his  discourse  where  the  common 
people  had  heard  him  gladly,  and  said,  "Go 
and  say  to  that  fox  that  I  work  to-day,  to- 
morrow, and  the  third  day  I  am  glorified,"  and 
went  on  with  his  message  to  the  people  as 
though  the  slight  interruption  of  a  king's  call 
had  never  occurred. 

The  greatest  compliment  he  ever  paid  to 
any  man  was  when  he  said,  "Among  those 
born  of  women  there  hath  not  arisen  one 
greater  than  John  the  Baptist"  The  signifi- 
cance of  this  one  can  readily  get  by  letting  the 
imagination  run  upon  the  facts  that  John  was 
the  humble  wilderness  preacher  whom  the 
reigning  monarch  had  recently  executed.  The 

61 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF  DEMOCRACY 

sycophant  would  have  climaxed  his  speeches 
with  the  greatness  of  Herod  and  stood  in  with 
those  in  authority,  but  Jesus  puts  the  crown 
on  the  head  of  the  one  who  has  been  executed. 
In  the  study  of  our  government  Charles  W. 
Eliot  has  shown  that  America  achieved  a  re- 
form that  no  other  people  ever  attempted,  and 
he  is  thus  quoted  by  Bryce,  in  his  American 
Commonwealth,  volume  two,  page  649,  and 
Bryce,  the  world  observer  himself,  says,  "Of 
all  the  differences  between  the  Old  World  and 
the  New,  this  is  the  most  salient :  the  separa- 
tion of  the  church  from  the  state."  Where  did 
America  get  this  thought?  It  was  Christ 
who  laid  down  the  principles  that  the  church 
and  the  state  are  separate.  "And  the  scribes 
and  the  chief  priests  sought  to  lay  hands  on 
him  in  that  very  hour;  and  they  feared  the 
people:  for  they  perceived  that  he  spake  this 
parable  against  them.  And  they  watched  him, 
and  sent  forth  spies,  who  feigned  themselves 
to  be  righteous,  that  they  might  take  hold  of 
his  speech,  so  as  to  deliver  him  up  to  the  rule 
and  to  the  authority  of  the  governor.  And 
they  asked  him,  saying,  Teacher,  we  know  that 
thou  sayest  and  teachest  rightly,  and  acceptest 
not  the  person  of  any,  but  of  a  truth  teachest 
the  way  of  God:  Is  it  lawful  for  us  to  give 
tribute  unto  Caesar,  or  not?    But  he  perceived 

62 


JESUS  AND  DEMOCRATIC  IDEALS 

their  craftiness,  and  said  unto  them,  Show  me 
a  denarius."  Holding  it  in  hand,  he  inquired, 
'^hose  image  and  superscription  hath  it?" 
And  they  said,  "Caesar's."  And  he  said  unto 
them,  "Then  render  unto  Caesar  the  things 
that  are  Caesar's,  and  unto  God  the  things  that 
are  God's.  And  they  were  not  able  to  take 
hold  of  the  saying  before  the  people :  and  they 
marveled  at  his  answer,  and  held  their  peace" 
(Luke  20.  19-26) .  They  observed  that  he  had 
answered  a  specific  question  definitely  but 
stated  an  everlasting  principle  of  government 
that  gives  freedom  from  all  trammels  for  re- 
ligion and  liberates  the  state  as  well. 

Jesus  was  "the  sower  who  went  forth  to 
sow."  He  planted  the  seed  of  democracy  from 
which  sprang  the  great  tree  of  human  liberty 
under  whose  wide-spreading  boughs  we  and 
our  children  sit  in  equity  and  power.  He  gave 
to  the  world  the  radical,  underlying  idea  of  all 
democracy,  of  all  social  growth,  and  of  all  hu- 
man rights.  How?  By  giving  man  a  new 
sense  of  the  capacities,  the  relations,  the  du- 
ties, and  the  destiny  of  man.  The  logical  and 
inevitable  result  of  his  teachings  and  life  and 
being  has  been  to  make  real  and  vital  these 
facts :  that  the  world  was  made  for  all  and  not 
for  a  few;  that  every  human  soul  is  of  im- 
measurable worth;  that  every  man  has  the 

53 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF  DEMOCRACY 

divine  right,  coequal  with  every  other  man,  to 
come  to  himself;  that  "every  human  being, 
whatever  his  lot  or  station  or  wealth  or  race, 
has  noble  powers  to  cultivate,  solemn  duties 
to  perform,  unalienable  rights  to  assert,  and 
a  vast  destiny  to  accomplish," 

The  only  idea  that  can  give  this  high  order 
of  equality,  promise,  and  potency  is  that  every 
man  is  too  sacred,  that  every  man  is  too  pre- 
cious, that  every  man  is  too  great,  to  be  awed 
by  priest  or  church  or  king  or  baron.  That 
idea  Jesus  made  effectual  in  the  world.  Do 
you  ask  me  how  he  did  it?  If  the  late  Mat- 
thew Arnold,  the  distinguished  representative 
of  the  highest  intellectual  culture  of  our  times, 
should  have  selected  twelve  plain,  ordinary, 
ungifted  men,  if  he  should  have  associated 
himself  with  them  on  terms  of  equality  and  fa- 
miliarity every  day,  if  he  should  have  pub- 
licly appointed  them  as  the  inner  circle  of  his 
disciples  through  whom  his  ideas  of  culture 
were  to  be  made  known  to  the  world,  such  se- 
lection and  association  would  be  equivalent  to 
a  declaration  on  Mr.  Arnold's  part  that  he  be- 
lieved these  men  to  be  capable  of  the  highest, 
the  finest,  the  most  perfect  culture. 

And  when  He,  who  is  greater  than  all  apos- 
tles of  culture,  came  and  selected  twelve  such 
men,  by  virtue  of  that  very  act  he  declared  that 

64 


JESUS  AND  DEMOCRATIC  IDEALS 

the  humblest  men  were  equal  to  the  highest 
things. 

Mark  the  openness,  the  entire  freedom,  with 
which  he  gave  his  deepest  truths  to  the  plain- 
est men.  He  preached  his  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  as  we  are  assured  by  all  scholars,  to  a 
motley  crowd  of  ignorant  peasants  and  rude 
fishermen.  They  were  gathered  from  the  Gal- 
ilaean  Lake  and  the  Galilaean  hills,  and  he 
preached  to  them  the  longest  sermon  he  ever 
preached  and  containing  some  of  the  deepest 
truths  to  which  he  ever  gave  utterance.  To 
this  audience  of  ordinary  men  and  women,  and 
not  at  Jerusalem  to  the  educated  and  cultured 
and  refined,  did  he  freely  give  these  great 
ideals. 

In  all  systems  of  theology  the  doctrine  of 
Grod  is  justly  declared  to  be  the  highest  theme. 
The  doctrine  of  God  with  Jesus  was  certainly 
his  highest  theme,  and  to  whom  and  in  what 
circumstances  did  he  most  fully  declare  his 
doctrine  of  God?  To  one  person — to  a  woman. 
Not  to  a  woman  like  Susannah  Wesley  or 
Frances  Willard  or  Clara  Barton,  but  to  a 
woman  whose  name  even  has  not  come  down 
to  us,  to  a  woman  not  only  unknoTvn  and  ob- 
scure, but  to  a  lax  woman,  and  to  a  woman 
who  was  a  heretic.  To  that  woman  Jesus 
taught  l^is  doctrine  of  God.    To  that  woman 

55 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF  DEMOCRACY 

he  declared  that  it  was  not  a  question  of 
Gerezim  or  Moriah.  To  that  woman  he 
declared  that  the  question  was  not  where 
God  should  be  worshiped,  but  how.  To  that 
woman  he  declared,  "God  is  a  Spirit :  and  they 
that  worship  him  must  worship  in  spirit  and 
truth."  They  who  will  may  fling  scornful 
sneers  at  the  degraded  outcast,  but  while  any 
portion  of  his  spirit  fills  my  heart  or  guides 
my  life  I  will  not  cease  to  remember  that  Jesus 
gave  his  doctrine  of  God  to  a  lax,  heretical 
woman.  Does  not  that  begin  to  make  men  and 
women  shine  with  an  unusual  luster?  Do  you 
treat  them  in  that  way?  Do  the  schools?  does 
society?  does  the  church?    But  Jesus  did. 

Consider  his  doctrine  of  the  superiority  of 
men  to  institutions,  to  all  customs  and  tradi- 
tions and  policies  however  venerable  and  how- 
ever sacred.  Our  Master  never  once  lost  sight 
of  that  truth  so  fully  embodied  in  his  gospel, 
that  institutions,  ceremonies,  ordinances,  cus- 
toms, and  policies  exist  for  man,  and  not  man 
for  these  institutions.  You  have  seen  the  bark 
on  the  tree.  What  would  be  thought  of  the 
men  who  would  insist  that  the  tree  lived  for  the 
bark?  Of  what  use  is  the  casket  except  to  pre- 
serve the  jewel?  He  who  would  think  of  teach- 
ing that  the  casket  was  more  important  than 
the  jewel  would  be  considered  unworthy  of 

66 


JESUS  AND  DEMOCRATIC  IDEALS 

hearing.  Precisely  at  this  point  Jesus  came 
into  collision  with  the  religious  teachers  of  his 
times.  They  thought  that  everything  depended 
upon  preserving  the  bark,  and  practically  they 
also  said,  "If  the  tree  will  not  behave  itself 
concerning  the  bark,  why,  away  with  the 
tree!"  They  had  built  up  about  the  law  a 
hedge,  high,  thorny,  prickly.  They  were  try- 
ing to  keep  the  law  on  the  other  side,  trying 
to  protect  it.  Their  end  was  noble,  their  ob- 
ject pure,  but  the  means  they  employed  were 
narrow,  cruel,  dwarfing,  inimical  to  the  high- 
est moral  growth  of  the  human  race.  He  came, 
and  they  began  to  rebuke  him  because  of  his 
nonobservance  of  the  law,  because  his  disciples 
ate  with  unwashed  hands,  because  they  rubbed 
barley  between  their  hands  in  passing  through 
the  field  on  the  Sabbath  day.  And  how  did  he 
answer  them?  Did  you  ever  see  the  lightning 
leap  from  the  bosom  of  the  peaceful  cloud? 
So  hot  and  scorching  wrath  came  from  the 
Lamb  of  God  as  "Woe!  Woe!  Woe!"  leaped 
and  poured  upon  the  men  who  taught  that  in- 
stitutions were  more  sacred  than  man  himself. 
By  the  whole  course  of  his  life  and  teaching 
our  Lord  lifted  men  above  all  institutions,  de- 
claring that  institutions  are  to  serve  men,  and 
that  when  men  grew  too  large  for  existing  in- 
stitutions they  were  to  be  displaced  by  such  as 

67 


THE   DIVINE  EIGHT   OF  DEMOCRACY 

were  adequate  to  the  growing,  expanding  life 
of  man.  Jesus  Christ  came  to  unfetter  and  en- 
franchise men,  to  build  up  in  this  world  a  type 
of  manhood  in  harmony  with  his  own  char- 
acter, and  to  bless  and  beautify  his  own  king- 
dom. He  himself  is  the  ideal  man,  the  perfect 
man,  and  God  has  been  framing  the  ages  to 
produce  in  the  kingdom  of  his  Son  and  by  the 
power  of  his  Spirit  a  complete  and  perfect 
manhood. 

Jesus  Christ  considered  the  individual  of 
infinite  value.  He  put  them  all  on  the  same 
plane,  and  this  principle  of  his  not  only  con- 
demns monarchy  but  it  forever  rejects  the 
ancient  idea  that  the  individual  exists  for  the 
church,  or  for  the  state,  or  for  the  most  sacred 
institutions.  So  when  Christ  was  healing  sick 
people,  restoring  sight  to  the  blind,  doing  good 
even  on  the  Sabbath  day,  those  who  put  in- 
stitutions ahead,  of  men  were  mortally  of- 
fended. Disciples  who  had  watched  him  at  his 
work  without  taking  time  to  eat,  grew  so  hun- 
gry that  passing  through  the  fields  of  corn 
they  broke  off  the  ripened  ears  on  the  Sabbath 
day,  but  the  worshipers  of  institutions  were 
horrified.  "And  the  Pharisees  said  unto  him. 
Behold,  why  do  they  on  the  Sabbath  day  that 
which  is  not  lawful?  And  he  said  unto  them. 
Did  ye  never  read  what  David  did,  when  he 

58 


JESUS  AND  DEMOCRATIC  IDEALS 

had  need,  and  was  hungry,  he,  and  they  that 
were  with  him?  How  he  entered  into  the  house 
of  God  when  Abiathar  was  high  priest,  and  ate 
the  showbread,  which  it  is  not  lawful  to  eat 
save  for  the  priests,  and  gave  also  to  them  that 
were  with  him?  And  he  said  unto  them.  The 
sabbath  was  made  for  man,  and  not  man  for 
the  sabbath:  so  that  the  Son  of  man  is  lord 
even  of  the  sabbath"  (Mark  2.  24-27). 

One  cannot  pick  up  at  random  anything 
about  Jesus  without  being  impressed  with  his 
democratic  spirit.  Every  principle  he  stated, 
every  example  he  set,  every  doctrine  he  incul- 
cated, was  democratic.  One  need  not  look  for 
texts ;  they  cluster  about  almost  any  narrative 
of  his  life. 

"Now  before  the  feast  of  the  Passover,  Jesus 
knowing  that  his  hour  was  come  that  he  should 
depart  out  of  this  world  unto  the  Father,  hav- 
ing loved  his  own  that  were  in  the  world,  he 
loved  them  unto  the  end.  .  .  .  knowing  that 
the  Father  had  given  all  things  into  his  hands, 
and  that  he  came  forth  from  God,  and  goeth 
unto  God,  riseth  from  supper,  and  layeth  aside 
his  garments ;  and  he  took  a  towel,  and  girded 
himself.  Then  he  poureth  water  into  the 
basin,  and  began  to  wash  the  disciples'  feet, 
and  to  wipe  them  with  the  towel  wherewith 
he  was  girded"    (John  13.   1-5).     Thus  he 

69 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT  OF  DEMOCRACY 

taught  for  three  years  that  he  is  greatest  who 
is  the  servant  of  all,  that  greatness  in  the  king- 
dom of  heaven  is  not  through  heredity,  posi- 
tion, honor,  education,  or  even  qualifications, 
but  is  in  the  spirit  and  act  of  service.  "He  that 
is  the  greater  among  you,  let  him  become  as 
the  younger;  and  he  that  is  chief  as  he  that 
doth  serve."  He  now  adds  this  impressive  ob- 
ject lesson  to  show  that  as  their  Lord  and  Mas- 
ter he  was  not  above  serving  the  humblest,  and 
it  is  no  wonder  that  the  apostles  went  out  from 
such  association  to  teach  that  "there  can  be 
neither  Jew  nor  Greek,  there  can  be  neither 
bond  nor  free,  there  can  be  no  male  and  fe- 
male; for  ye  all  are  one  man  in  Christ  Jesus" 
(Gal.  3.  28) ;  and  if  ye  are  Christ's,  the  fic- 
titious distinctions  of  race,  class,  rulership, 
freedom  or  slavery,  male  supremacy  or  female 
rights,  all  melt  away  in  the  oneness  of  Chris- 
tian love  and  by  the  power  of  Christ's  own  ex- 
ample who  never  taught  the  Divine  Father- 
hood apart  from  its  implications  of  human 
brotherhood. 

There  is  a  significant  reference  to  the  democ- 
racy of  the  disciples  trained  under  Jesus  found 
in  Acts  4.  1,  2.  "And  as  they  spake  unto  the 
people,  the  priests  and  the  captain  of  the  tem- 
ple and  the  Sadducees  came  upon  them,  being 
sore  troubled  because  they  taught  the  people." 

60 


JESUS  AND  DEMOCRATIC  IDEALS 

We  often  quote  this  text  as  if  the  trouble  of 
the  ruling  classes  grew  out  of  the  fact  that 
they  were  teaching  people  Christianity,  but  the 
text  specifically  teaches  that  the  rulers  were 
troubled  because  they  were  teaching  the  people 
at  all.  Their  estimate  of  the  people  was, 
"This  multitude  that  know  not  the  law  are 
accursed."  It  never  occurred  to  them  that 
the  ignorance  of  the  masses  is  the  disgrace  and 
crime  of  the  classes  who  have  deprived  their 
brethren  and  equals  of  the  sources  and  means 
of  knowledge. 

After  our  New  Testament  the  next  docu- 
ment that  clearly  states  Christ's  principles 
that  the  most  sacred  institutions  are  but  a 
means  for  the  use  of  the  end,  man,  is  the  Dec- 
laration of  Independence.  "We  hold  these 
truths  to  be  self-evident,  that  all  men  are 
created  equal,  that  they  are  endowed  by  their 
Creator  with  certain  inalienable  rights,  that 
among  these  are  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit 
of  happiness.  That  to  secure  these  rights  gov- 
ernments are  instituted  among  men,  deriving 
their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  gov- 
erned," and  every  proposition  in  the  immortal 
Declaration  is  a  New-Testament  fundamental 
doctrine:  all  men  equal;  endowed  by  their 
Creator ;  inalienable  rights  to  life,  liberty,  hap- 
piness; governments  instituted  for  man  and 

61 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT  OF  DEMOCRACY 

his  rights,  not  men  maintained  for  the  pro- 
tection and  expansion  of  the  state ;  states  gain- 
ing their  right  to  exist  only  by  consent  of  the 
governed.  These  were  the  doctrines  pro- 
claimed by  Jesus,  elaborated  by  Paul  and  by 
John,  and  no  one  can  study  the  New  Testa- 
ment as  a  source  book  of  American  principles 
without  discovering  Jesus  Christ  to  be  the 
creator  and  founder  of  modern  democracy. 

It  is  no  wonder  that  the  Virgin  Mary,  with 
the  prophetic  afflatus  upon  her,  giving  expres- 
sion to  the  mission  of  the  Child  who  was  to  be 
born  of  her,  should  have  shown  that  a  dis- 
tinctive mission  of  his  life  was  not  only  to 
glorify  God  and  teach  his  Fatherhood  but  also 
to  make  the  world  democratic. 

"He  hath  showed  strength  with  his  arm ; 
He  hath  scattered  the  proud  in  the  imagina- 
tion of  their  heart. 
He  hath  put  down  princes  from  their  thrones, 
And  hath  exalted  them  of  low  degree. 
The  hungry  he  hath  filled  with  good  things; 
And  the  rich  he  hath  sent  empty  away." 

He  hath  obliterated  fictitious  distinctions, 
He  hath  leveled  the  mountains  that  were  insur- 
mountable to  the  masses, 
And  hath  exalted  the  valleys  of  humanity  to  the 
levels  of  the  hills. 

62 


IV 


IS  THE  UNITED  STATES  A  CHRISTIAN 
NATION? 

We  are  often  told  that  public  speakers,  es- 
pecially in  the  pulpit,  should  avoid  personal- 
ities. I  hope  it  will  not  be  thought  that  I  too 
much  violate  this  standard  of  good  taste  in 
discussing  the  question,  "Is  Uncle  Sam  a 
Christian?" 

To  this  question,  "Is  Uncle  Sam  a  Chris- 
tian?" there  are  thoughtless  writers  and 
speakers  who  claim  that  because  the  name  of 
God  is  not  in  our  Constitution,  the  assembly 
that  formed  our  government  was  atheistical. 
To  jump  to  such  a  conclusion  is  to  break  away 
from  all  the  facts  of  our  history,  the  inclina- 
tions of  our  people,  the  commitments  of  our 
institutions,  and  the  heredity,  education,  and 
environment  of  our  fathers. 

To  say  that  the  assembly  that  formed  our 
Constitution  was  atheistical  contradicts  all 
the  facts  of  history.  When  the  delegates  of 
the  thirteen  colonies  assembled  to  form  our 
Constitution,  five  weeks  passed  without  result, 
and  in  hopeless  confusion  the  assembly  was 

63 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF   DEMOCRACY 

about  to  break  up  when  Benjamin  Franklin,  of 
four-score  years,  arose  and  said : 

"Mr.  President,  I  perceive  that  we  are  not 
in  condition  to  pursue  this  business  any  fur- 
ther. Our  blood  is  too  hot.  We  indeed  seem  to 
feel  our  own  want  of  political  wisdom,  since 
we  have  been  running  about  in  search  of  it. 
We  have  gone  back  to  ancient  history  for  mod- 
els of  governments  and  examined  the  different 
forms  of  those  republics  which,  having  been 
formed  with  the  seeds  of  their  own  dissolution, 
now  no  longer  exist.  In  this  situation  of  this 
assembly,  groping  as  it  were  in  the  dark,  to 
find  political  truth,  and  scarce  able  to  distin- 
guish it  when  presented  to  us,  how  has  it  hap- 
pened, sir,  that  we  have  not  hitherto  once 
thought  of  humbly  applying  to  the  Father  of 
lights  to  illuminate  our  understandings?  In 
the  beginning  of  the  contest  with  Great  Brit- 
ain, when  we  were  sensible  to  danger,  we  had 
daily  prayer  in  this  room  for  divine  protection. 
Our  prayers,  sir,  were  heard;  and  they  were 
graciously  answered.  All  of  us  who  were  en- 
gaged in  the  struggle  must  have  observed  fre- 
quent instances  of  a  superintending  Provi- 
dence in  our  favor. 

"To  that  kind  Providence  we  owe  this  happy 
opportunity  of  consulting,  in  peace,  on  the 
means  of  establishing  our  future  national  fe- 

64 


IS  THE  UNITED  STATES  CHRISTIAN? 

licity ;  and  have  we  now  forgotten  that  power- 
ful Friend?  Or  do  we  imagine  that  we  no 
longer  need  his  assistance?  I  have  lived,  sir, 
a  long  time;  and  the  longer  I  live  the  more 
convincing  proofs  I  see  of  this  truth,  that  God 
governs  in  the  affairs  of  men.  If  a  sparrow 
cannot  fall  to  the  ground  without  his  notice, 
is  it  probable  that  an  empire  can  rise  without 
his  aid? 

"We  have  been  assured,  sir,  in  the  sacred 
writings,  that  'except  the  Lord  build  the  house, 
they  labor  in  vain  that  build  iV  I  firmly  be- 
lieve this;  and  I  also  believe  that  without  his 
concurring  aid  we  shall  succeed  in  this  po- 
litical building  no  better  than  the  builders  of 
Babel.  We  shall  be  divided  by  our  little  par- 
tial local  interests;  our  projects  will  be  con- 
founded and  we  ourselves  shall  become  a  re- 
proach and  a  byword  down  to  future  ages; 
and,  what  is  worse,  mankind  may  hereafter 
from  this  unfortunate  instance  despair  of  es- 
tablishing governments  by  human  \\isdom, 
and  leave  it  to  chance,  war,  and  conquest. 

"I  therefore,  move  you,  sir,  that  we  separate 
for  three  days,  during  which  time  in  a  con- 
ciliatory spirit  we  talk  with  both  parties;  for 
if  ever  we  make  a  constitution  it  must  be  the 
work  of  compromise;^  and  while  I  am  on  my 

>OTer  the  then  existing  evil  of  chattel  slavery. 
65 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF   DEMOCRACY 

feet  I  move  you,  sir,  and  I  am  astonished  that 
it  has  not  been  done  before,  for  when  we  signed 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  we  had  a 
chaplain  to  read  the  Bible  and  pray;  and  I 
move  now  that  when  we  meet  again  we  have  a 
chaplain  to  meet  with  us  each  morning  before 
we  proceed  to  business,  and  that  we  have 
prayers  imploring  the  assistance  of  Heaven 
and  its  blessings  on  our  deliberations." 

Washington's  face  beamed  with  Joy  as  he 
stood  to  second  the  motion.  At  the  end  of 
three  days  they  met,  had  prayer  together,  and 
without  a  jar  formed  our  Constitution,  which 
Gladstone  has  pronounced  the  "greatest  state 
document  of  all  Christian  ages." 

Seeking  thus  divine  guidance,  is  it  not  a 
natural  conclusion  that  our  fathers  diligently 
searched  his  Word  for  light  in  their  dilemma? 

These  men  had  adopted  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  only  a  little  while  before  the 
Constitution,  "appealing  to  the  Supreme 
Judge  of  the  world  for  the  rectitude  of  our  in- 
tentions," and  "with  firm  reliance  on  the  pro- 
tection of  Divine  Providence,"  and  we  should 
remember  that,  as  already  stated,  the  very 
dollar  with  which  we  pay  our  debts  proclaims 
to  the  world  the  truth,  "In  God  We  Trust." 

Those  of  you  who  remember  the  episode  of 
a  few  years  ago  when  Mr.  Roosevelt  as  Presi- 

66 


IS  THE  UNITED  STATES  CHRISTIAN? 

dent  recommended  the  removal  of  those  words 
from  the  silver  dollar,  know  just  how  much 
they  mean  to  the  American  people.  They  may 
not  live  up  to  their  professions  always,  but 
they  will  tolerate  no  tampering  with  their 
standards;  and  the  perfect  hornets'  nest  that 
the  great  President  stirred  up  when  he  sug- 
gested the  removal  of  those  words  from  the 
currency  of  the  nation  will  prevent  its  ever 
being  attempted  again.  It  may  be  interesting 
to  know  how  this  sentiment  got  on  our  money 
and  why  they  sought  to  remove  it. 

"In  God  We  Trust"  first  appeared  on  the 
copper  two-cent  piece,  issued  in  1864,  during 
Lincoln's  administration  and  is  the  first  use 
of  the  word  "God"  on  any  government  money 
issued.  This  suggestion  came  from  James 
Pollock,  an  ex-governor  of  Pennsylvania,  who 
was  director  of  the  Mint,  and  it  had  the  ap- 
proval of  Salmon  P.  Chase,  then  secretary  of 
the  treasury  and  one  of  the  greatest  American 
statesmen.  It  appeared  in  the  1866  issue  of 
the  double  eagle,  the  eagle  and  half  eagle ;  also 
on  the  dollar,  half  dollar  and  nickel  five-cent 
piece  in  lieu  of  the  long  existing  motto  "E 
Pluribus  Unum." 

In  the  trade  dollar  issue  of  1873  both  mot- 
toes were  retained;  "In  God  We  Trust"  ap- 
pearing on  the  obverse  side  of  the  silver  dollar 

67 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT  OF  DEMOCRACY 

and  half-dollar  and  nickel  five-cent  piece,  and 
on  the  other  side  the  motto  "E  Pluribus 
Unum."  These  national  sentiments  have  ap- 
peared on  all  important  coins  since,  as  a  re- 
minder that  this  nation  owes  its  allegiance  to 
something  higher  than  politics  and  higher 
than  money.  It  is  not  a  sectarian  sentiment. 
It  does  not  offend  a  Jew  or  Mohammedan,  or 
a  deist  even,  but  reminds  the  American  people 
that  life  consists  of  more  than  meat  and  the 
body  more  than  raiment,  and  that  commercial- 
ism can  never  make  a  nation  any  more  than  it 
can  build  an  individual  character. 

Why  was  it  proposed  to  remove  this  senti- 
ment from  the  nation's  money?  Was  it  be- 
cause we  had  learned  our  lesson  so  well  that 
we  were  in  no  danger  of  falling  into  a  life  of 
mere  commercialism?  Was  it  because  we  had 
risen  so  high  in  the  moral  and  spiritual  scale 
as  to  need  no  further  reminders  of  that  Power 
higher  than  ourselves  that  works  for  right- 
eousness? Was  it  because  somebody  objected 
to  the  sentiment  expressed? 

One  reason  assigned  by  the  President  was 
that  he  had  heard  slighting  remarks  about  it 
by  certain  of  his  companions,  and  he  did  not 
wish  to  see  the  sentiment  ridiculed.  But  was 
there  ever  a  noble  sentiment  or  an  unselfish 
act,  or  a  great  moral  effort  that  was  not  sus- 

68 


IS  THE  UNITED  STATES  CHRISTIAN? 

ceptible  of  ridicule  and  cheap  facetiousness? 
I  have  heard  men  warning  public  audiences 
against  our  drift  toward  materialism  and  com- 
mercialism say,  "If  we  continue  in  this  direc- 
tion we  shall  soon  have  to  change  our  motto  to 
*In  Gold  We  Trust'  instead  of  the  old- 
fashioned  sentiment  about  God."  But  it  never 
occurred  to  me  that  because  of  such  a  facetious 
remark  we  should  haul  down  our  flag  for  fear 
the  enemy  would  fire  upon  it. 

This  is  of  a  piece  with  a  criticism  I  heard 
about  the  American  Revision  of  the  Bible, 
generally  agreed  to  be  the  best  translation  of 
the  original  now  extant.  A  friend  of  mine  ob- 
jects to  the  version  because  the  word  "Jeho- 
vah" is  given  wherever  that  name  for  the  Deity 
occurs  in  the  original,  instead  of  following  the 
example  of  the  old  version  in  substituting  the 
word  "Lord."  This  friend  fears  that  the  name 
"Jehovah"  being  thus  prominently  brought 
out  will  soon  be  used  in  swearing,  which  would 
shock  him  very  much!  My  remedy  would  be 
to  instill  principles  of  reverence,  or  at  least  of 
social  decency,  to  prevent  swearing.  His 
remedy  seems  to  be  to  keep  the  world  in  ig- 
norance of  this  noble  name  lest  they  should 
misuse  it. 

The  last  man  in  our  national  history  whom 
I  would  have  expected  to  advocate  lowering 

69 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF  DEMOCRACY 

standards  in  order  to  prevent  higher  standards 
from  being  misrepresented,  was  the  manly  and 
righteous  Roosevelt;  and  much  as  I  admired 
him,  I  must  maintain  that  we  still  need  the 
elevating,  educating  and  inspiring  sentiment 
on  every  silver  coin  issued  by  our  national 
Mint— "In  God  We  Trust."  And  if  the  senti- 
ment is  not  strictly  true,  there  are  ministers 
and  missionaries,  teachers  and  lecturers,  edit- 
ors and  authors  enough  to  lift  our  people  up 
to  a  moral  plane  on  which  it  shall  be  true. 

During  the  Civil  War  a  Negro  color  bearer 
in  the  thick  of  the  fight  was  beckoned  to  by 
the  colonel  of  his  regiment,  who  cried,  "Bring 
those  colors  back  to  the  line."  The  excited  and 
patriotic  Negro,  however,  responded,  "You 
bring  that  line  up  to  the  colors;  these  colors 
cannot  come  back."  Let  us  not  drop  our  col- 
ors to  any  lower  level.  I  would  rather  join 
with  those  who  sing: 

"She's  been  in  many  a  fix  since  1776, 

But  the  old  flag  never  touched  the  ground." 

Noah  Webster,  in  the  Preface  of  his  great 
dictionary,  wrote:  "The  United  States  com- 
menced their  existence  under  circumstances 
wholly  novel  and  unexampled  in  the  history  of 
nations.  They  commenced  with  civilization, 
with  learning,  with  science,  with  arts,  with  a 

70 


IS  THE  UNITED  STATES  CHRISTIAN? 

constitution  of  free  government,  and  with  the 
best  gift  of  God  to  man,  the  Christian  reli- 
gion." 

All  the  progiess  of  past  ages  was  required  to 
produce  a  people  capable  of  maintaining  our 
form  of  government,  for  no  nation  can  main- 
tain a  better  form  of  government  than  it  can 
make.  All  the  elements  of  good  in  past  prog- 
ress were  gathered  up  in  the  ideals  of  the  na- 
tional rights  of  man  to  govern  himself,  and  of 
religious  liberty  for  all.  This  plan  conceived 
in  the  minds  of  a  few  procured  for  them  the 
appellation  of  "Puritans,"  and  before  they 
could  find  a  field  adapted  to  the  making  of 
their  experiment  they  had  all  become  Pilgrims. 
But  their  sentiment  appealing  to  the  natural 
instincts  and  strongest  desires  for  man  found 
a  response  in  the  best  material  of  every  civil- 
ized nation,  and  Plymouth  Rock  became  the 
nucleus  of  world-wide  growth  toward  free- 
dom. 

Our  nation  is  classed  among  the  nations  of 
the  world  as  a  Christian  republic.  It  was  set- 
tled by  Christians,  who  came  to  glorify  God 
and  extend  the  influence  of  the  Christian  re- 
ligion. A  reading  of  the  charters  of  New  Eng- 
land, of  the  grants  of  land  to  the  Virginia, 
Connecticut,  and  Massachusetts  colonies  will 
astound  the  average  person  with  the  number 

71 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF   DEMOCRACY 

and  fullness  of  the  declarations  that  the  land 
belongs  to  God,  that  they  were  going  across  to 
extend  the  honor  of  his  name  and  the  Chris- 
tian religion.  The  Constitution  of  the  States 
recognized  that  the  Christian  religion  is  a  true 
religion,  that  the  Holy  Scriptures  of  the  New 
and  Old  Testaments  are  of  divine  inspiration 
and  are  the  rule  of  faith  and  practice  and 
underlie  all  enactments,  constitutional  and 
statutory.  Those  who  look  up  the  charters  of 
the  colleges  which  have  helped  to  make  our 
history  will  be  equally  surprised  to  find  that 
they  are  "for  the  propagation  of  the  pure  gos- 
pel of  Christ,  our  only  Mediator,  to  the  praise 
and  honor  of  Almighty  God." 

A  significant  fact  is  the  recognition  of  Sun- 
day, the  Lord's  Day,  as  a  Christian  Sabbath 
and  therefore  as  an  American  institution.  The 
United  States  Constitution  provides  that  the 
President  shall  have  ten  days  to  consider  all 
bills.  If  he  disapproves,  he  returns  it  with  his 
veto,  and  then  it  specifies  that  if  it  is  not  re- 
turned by  him  within  ten  days  (Sundays  ex- 
cepted) after  it  shall  have  been  presented  to 
him,  it  becomes  a  law.  Similar  provisions 
have  been  found  in  the  Constitutions  of  most 
of  the  States  and  in  thirty-six  out  of  forty- 
eight  the  words  "Sundays  excepted"  are  in- 
cluded. 

72 


IS  THE  UNITED  STATES  CHRISTIAN? 

In  Louisiana  they  left  out  these  words  in  the 
revision  of  their  Constitution  in  1864,  and  the 
question  of  the  governor's  veto  came  up  in  the 
supreme  court.  That  court  decided  that  these 
words  are  constructively  there,  because  this  is 
a  Christian  state  and  Sunday  is  a  part  of  our 
Christian  institution  and  therefore  implied. 
The  court,  therefore,  unanimously  held  that 
Sunday  was  to  be  excluded  in  the  count. 

This  constitutional  provision,  of  course, 
justifies  all  the  long  chain  of  Sabbath  legisla- 
tion designed  to  protect  the  workingman  in 
his  right  to  rest  and  the  Christian  Church  in 
its  right  to  worship  and  the  Christian  citizen 
in  his  right  to  a  quiet  day. 

The  name  of  God  frequently  appears  in  the 
State  Constitutions  and  courts.  You  find  the 
words  in  the  Preamble  to  the  Constitutions 
of  the  various  States,  "Grateful  to  Almighty 
God,"  and  by  Constitution  and  statute  the  of- 
ficial oaths  are  to  close  with  the  words,  "So 
help  me  God."  The  common  commencement 
of  wills  is,  "In  the  name  of  God,  Amen,"  and 
every  foreigner  attests  his  renunciation  of  al- 
legiance to  his  former  sovereign  and  his  accept- 
ance of  citizenship  in  this  republic  by  an  ap- 
peal to  God.  The  employment  of  chaplains  in 
the  army  and  navy,  as  officers  of  legislative 
assemblies,  the  whole  range  of  their  service, 

78 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF   DEMOCRACY 

whether  in  prayer  or  preaching,  is  an  official 
recognition  of  Christianity,  If  we  should  turn 
to  the  decision  of  the  courts,  we  find  them 
unanimous  that  the  Christian  religion  is  a  part 
of  the  common  law  of  the  several  States. 

It  is  not  surprising  in  the  light  of  these  facts 
that  a  committee  of  patriots  consisting  of  Dr. 
Franklin,  John  Adams,  and  Thomas  Jefferson 
appointed  on  the  same  day  that  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  was  adopted  to  prepare 
a  seal  for  the  United  States,  should  have  pro- 
posed a  scriptural  device,  a  picture  of  Pharaoh 
in  an  open  chariot,  a  crown  on  his  head  and  a 
sword  in  his  hand,  passing  through  the  divid- 
ing waters  of  the  Red  Sea  in  pursuit  of  the 
Israelites,  with  rays  from  the  pillar  of  fire 
beaming  on  Moses,  who  is  represented  as 
standing  on  the  shore  extending  his  hand  over 
the  sea,  and  causing  it  to  overwhelm  Pharaoh's 
hosts.  Surrounding  this  picture  is  the  motto : 
"Rebellion  to  Tyrants  is  Obedience  to  God." 

But  if  we  were  to  undertake  the  recital  of 
the  borrowings  from  the  Bible  in  the  early 
laws  and  customs  of  our  colonies,  we  should 
be  reproducing  the  Pentateuch  and  delivering 
a  volume  instead  of  a  lecture.  The  Massa- 
chusetts historical  collection  shows  that  the 
Bay  colony  refused  to  use  the  English  com- 
mon law  and  adopted  the  Pentateuch.     They 

74 


IS  THE  UNITED  STATES  CHRISTIAN? 

made  a  code  from  this  called  "The  Body  of 
Liberties,"  which  was  copied  verhatim  from 
Moses.  A  common  topic  for  sermons  during 
the  Revolutionary  period  was  "The  Republic 
of  the  Israelites  an  Example  to  the  American 
States.''  It  was  after  a  sermon  on  this  sub- 
ject before  the  general  court,  June  5,  1788, 
by  Dr.  Langdon,  that  the  State  of  New  Hamp- 
shire met  and  adopted  the  United  States  Con- 
stitution. 

As  truly  as  Keppler  has  said,  "An  undevout 
astronomer  is  mad,"  so  may  we  aver,  "An  un- 
devout American  is  mad";  for,  while  the  as- 
tronomer sees  the  marks  of  design  in  the  stel- 
lar world,  we  see  the  proofs  of  God's  care  in 
the  freedom  of  body,  mind,  and  spirit  that  we 
enjoy. 

When  Columbus  was  two  thirds  way  across 
the  ocean  on  his  first  voyage  of  discovery  the 
prow  of  his  vessels  was  pointed  for  the  Dela- 
ware Bay,  but  a  flock  of  birds  passed  over  his 
little  fleet  going  to  the  southwest.  Judging 
that  land  lay  in  that  direction,  Pinton  per- 
suaded the  admiral  to  change  the  course  of  his 
ships  and  so  he  landed  on  a  small  island  of 
the  West  Indies. 

The  secularist  closes  his  eyes  in  this  to  all 
but  a  flight  of  birds ;  but  the  Christian  opens 
his,  and  sees  the  hand  of  God  directing  that  if 

75 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF  DEMOCRACY 

Spanish  misrule  is  to  curse  any  part  of  this 
hemisphere,  it  should  be  confined  to  the  south- 
ern islands;  and  that  this  North  American 
continent  should  be  saved  to  become  the  base 
for  the  greatest  continuous  empire  of  mankind 
and  the  cradle  for  a  multiplying  nation  of 
English-speaking  Protestants.  "Never,"  said 
Humboldt,  the  Prussian  philosopher,  "had  a 
flight  of  birds  such  important  consequences." 

John  Richard  Green,  the  greatest  historian 
of  the  English  people,  recounts  the  popularity 
and  power  of  John  Wesley's  preaching,  de- 
scribes the  number  of  his  societies  and  his 
marvelous  system  of  church  government,  and 
then  says:  "He  recreated  England.  But  for 
the  new  life  created  by  the  Wesleyan  revival 
Pitt  could  never  have  come  into  power  in  the 
British  government,  as  there  would  have  been 
nothing  on  which  he  could  stand." 

He  then  shows  that  Pitt  in  one  decade,  by 
the  sword  of  Wolfe,  drove  the  French  beyond 
the  Saint  Lawrence,  and  made  this  great 
Protestant  English-speaking  people  possible. 

In  the  same  decade  he  drove  the  French  out 
of  the  Indies  and  rescued  that  empire  of  three 
hundred  millions  for  Protestant  Christianity. 

He  rescued  Frederick  the  Great  from  the 
French  and  the  Spaniards  and  so  preserved 
the  German  nation. 

76 


IS  THE  UNITED  STATES  CHRISTIAN? 

These  three  greatest  Protestant  nations  on 
earth  arose  under  God's  providence  from  the 
evangelical  fervor  created  by  one  man  raised 
up  in  the  nick  of  time. 

That  God  destined  this  country  to  be  the 
home  of  civil  and  religious  liberty  and  the 
torch-bearer  of  democracy  is  shown  in  its  nat- 
ural resources  and  its  providential  discovery 
and  religious  settlement.  "The  Lord  sitteth 
upon  his  throne  in  the  heavens,  and  his  king- 
dom ruleth  over  all.''  He  carries  out  his  will 
by  human  leaders.  Nations  are  his  greatest 
agents.  The  Hebrew  Scriptures  show  us  God 
in  his  world.  The  fault  of  our  historians  is 
that  they  ignore  this  and  try  to  rule  God  out 
of  his  own  realm. 

The  foundations  of  national  life  are  moral. 
If  these  fail,  the  structure  falls,  and  it  ought 
to  fall.  "Where  the  carcass  is,  there  will  the 
vultures  be  gathered  together."  Our  annals 
are  chiefly  of  dead  nations;  for  nations  have 
special  divine  missions.  When  they  fail  God 
puts  them  aside.  They  have  no  future  life; 
their  judgment  must  therefore  come  in  this 
world. 

We  are  deeply  interested  in  the  lands  that 
rule  the  world.  What  shall  be  their  future? 
We  know  that  morality  is  the  life  of  the  na- 
tion; and  that  religion  is  the  life  of  morals, 

77 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF   DEMOCRACY 

and  if  the  principles  of  the  divine  kingdom 
be  breathed  into  our  constitution  and  laws, 
into  our  public  and  private  life,  we  shall  en- 
dure, 

"Till  the  sun  grows  cold, 
And  the  stars  are  old. 
And  the  leaves  of  the  judgment  book  unfold." 

To  this  end  some  trust  in  preparedness  and 
some  are  "too  proud  to  fight."  But  I  say,  let 
us  get  back  to  the  conscience  of  the  people. 
The  highest  statesmanship  in  a  government 
like  this  is  to  line  up  the  people  to  a  simple 
proposition  in  righteousness  as  often  as  pos- 
sible. Make  it  increasingly  clear  that  while  the 
principle  is  old  there  are  ever  new  applications 
of  the  truth  that  "Righteousness  exalteth  a  na- 
tion, but  sin  is  a  reproach  to  any  people." 

As  a  people  we  do  well  to  take  note  of  na- 
tional blessings.  They  indicate  our  obligation 
and  stimulate  our  gratitude  and  reveal  the 
source  of  our  mercies.  The  heavens  rule ;  the 
government  is  in  the  hands  of  the  manger 
cradle,  the  thorn-crowned  King,  the  Son  of 
God.  By  him  governments  are  set  up,  rulers 
decree  justice,  and  national  structures  stand 
or  fall,  flourish  or  decay.  On  his  head  are 
many  crowns,  and  he  rules  the  world  in  the 
interest  of  man's  redemption,  the  outcome  of 

78 


IS  THE  UNITED  STATES  CHRISTIAN? 

which  must  be  righteousness,  justice,  and  ever- 
lasting peace. 

For  the  epoch  of  our  national  life  and  for  the 
bounds  of  our  habitation — both  of  them  by  di- 
vine appointment — we  have  cause  for  thanks- 
giving, for  God  has  not  dealt  so  with  any  na- 
tion; no  such  heritage  has  he  given  to  any 
other  people.  He  has  placed  us  at  the  highest 
era  of  the  world's  progress  in  civilization  and 
culture,  climate  and  landscape,  that  this  fair 
planet  can  afford.  He  has  gathered  to  us  out 
of  all  the  nations  a  population  that  makes  us 
half  brother  to  the  world,  with  something  good 
and  bad  from  every  land.  In  the  use  of  free 
and  enlightened  institutions  with  the  blessing 
of  Providence,  we  may  cast  off  the  brute  in- 
heritance of  an  evil  past  and  rise  to  become 
the  crowning  race  of  human  kind,  leading  the 
world  to  its  millennial  day.  Let  us  thank  God 
for  an  outlook  so  inspiring. 

Through  all  our  changes  the  one  great  idea 
of  human  liberty  sailed  in  safety,  and,  not- 
withstanding the  clamor  of  men,  the  measures 
and  platforms  of  political  parties,  this  great 
idea  of  human  liberty  has  held  the  ascendancy 
every  moment,  and  the  principles  of  democracy 
have  never  suffered  a  wreck.  Bodies  politic, 
like  natural  bodies,  die,  but  principles,  like 
souls,  are  immortal.     Our  government,  based 

79 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF   DEMOCRACY 

on  the  capability  of  man  to  govern  himself,  is 
founded  on  God's  decree  of  man's  freedom; 
and  thus,  as  the  Latin  maxim  says,  "The  voice 
of  the  people  is  the  voice  of  God."  Whatever 
the  majority  of  the  nation  does  is  democracy. 
When  and  wherever  the  people  rule  there  is  a 
democratic  triumph.  Democracy  may  have 
many  desires,  frame  many  petitions,  and  make 
many  requests,  but  can  never  have  but  one 
article  of  faith,  and  that  is  founded  on  man's 
inalienable  right  and  capacity  for  self-govern- 
ment, and  it  never  can  depart  from  the  right 
of  the  people  to  rule. 

In  the  great  religious  commotions  that  arose 
beyond  the  Atlantic  the  best  blood  of  Europe 
came  to  this  country  seeking  religious  free- 
dom. There  was  a  religious  basis  to  every 
colony.  The  great  revival  of  1740  was  a  nat- 
ural outgrowth  of  the  characteristics  of  the 
settlers.  Tens  of  thousands  were  brought  into 
the  church,  and  those  foundations  of  a  free- 
dom-loving, Bible-reading  nation  were  laid  be- 
fore the  Revolution  broke  out.  From  then  till 
now  we  have  demonstrated  that  it  is  possible 
for  a  nation  to  exist  with  no  King  but  Jesus, 
and  no  government  but  the  free,  untrammeled 
will  of  a  sovereign  people,  who  believe  in  and 
worship  God  and  live  his  Golden  Rule. 

Many  have  been  the  misgivings  and  fears 
80 


IS  THE  UNITED  STATES  CHRISTIAN? 

of  good  men  lest  the  ark  which  bears  the  fam- 
ily of  God  to  glory  should  founder  in  the 
storm.  The  fear  is  needless.  Learn  a  parable 
of  the  scanty  relics  of  our  race,  once  drifting 
upon  the  surge,  without  a  compass,  helmsman, 
sun,  or  stars  to  pilot  them — yet  they  were  un- 
devoured.  A  sleepless  Eye  kept  watch  upon 
their  vessel's  course,  an  unwearied  Arm  guided 
them  to  their  summit  of  repose;  thence  they 
went  forth  to  repair  the  waste  places  and  to 
replenish  the  earth — a  type  of  mercy  rejoicing 
against  judgment. 

Thus  far  the  old  ship,  constructed  by  the 
wisdom  and  launched  by  the  strength  of  our 
fathers,  has  weathered  the  storm  on  her  own 
as  well  as  foreign  seas.  She  has  passed  out  of 
harbor  in  a  gale,  crossed  the  bar  in  a  heavy 
land  swell,  and  run  far  beyond  the  heaving  of 
the  angry  surf.  She  has  encountered  the  broad 
ocean  and  felt  the  shock  of  the  raging  storm ; 
and,  in  proud  defiance  of  the  angry  elements, 
she  still  floats,  a  monument  of  the  wisdom  of 
her  great  builders  and  of  God's  providential 
care. 

"Thou  too  sail  on,  O  Ship  of  State, 
Sail  on,  O  Union,  strong  and  great. 
Humanity  with  all  its  fears, 
With  all  its  hopes  of  future  years. 
Is  hanging  breathless  on  thy  fate." 
81 


PAGAN  INROADS  ON  AMERICAN 
DEMOCRACY 

During  the  World  War  two  men  were  con- 
versing on  a  car  seat  back  of  me.  One  said, 
"Germany  is  nothing  but  a  pagan  nation." 
That  remark  started  a  train  of  thought ;  and 
I  said  to  myself :  "That  man  is  mistaken.  Ger- 
many is  not  a  pagan  land;  she  is  a  Christian 
nation  secularized,  or,  as  the  Methodists  would 
say,  'back-slidden.'  • ' 

One  hundred  years  ago  she  was  the  most 
Christian  nation  in  Europe  and  represented 
the  purest  type  of  Christianity.  She  was  the 
most  thoroughly  committed  to  the  Christian 
ideals  in  her  institutions,  her  professions,  tra- 
ditions, and  the  grip  of  her  Bible  upon  the 
literature  and  education  of  her  people.  We 
boast  of  our  King  .Tames  Version  and  its  in- 
fluence over  the  English-speaking  people,  but 
it  was  no  greater  than  Martin  Luther's  mar- 
velous translation  of  the  same  Scriptures  into 
the  German  tongue,  and  its  hold  upon  the 
German  civilization. 

There  came  a  day  when  the  native  conceit 
went   to   work,    through    the   process   called 

82 


PAGAN  INROADS 

"higher  criticism,"  to  undermine  the  faith  of 
the  people  in  the  integrity  of  their  own  Book, 
by  negative  processes  of  studying  the  letter  of 
the  Bible  for  eliminations,  mistakes,  and  over- 
sights. They  did  not  look  for  principles  or 
precepts  or  promises — but  for  errors.  They 
had  a  buzzard's  scent  for  carrion.  These 
critics,  hunting  the  Bible  for  mistakes,  remind 
one  of  the  darkey  who  took  a  dark  lantern  on 
a  dark  night  and  went  down  into  a  dark  cellar 
to  find  a  black  cat  that  was  not  there.  With 
an  imagination  that  was  characteristic,  they 
cut  up  the  Bible  and  formed  it  into  a 
crazy-quilt,  and  carried  on  a  picking  process 
until  it  was  in  shreds  and  the  faith  of  the  peo- 
ple in  the  integrity  of  the  Book  was  gone. 

They  then  adopted  a  system  of  rationalism 
by  which  they  explained  away  everything  that 
was  left  in  the  faith  of  the  people;  the  old 
Book  and  its  inspiration,  the  virgin  birth  and 
the  resurrection  of  Christ,  regeneration  and 
the  Pentecost,  all  evaporated  in  a  rationalistic 
atmosphere. 

Next  it  w^as  easy  to  adopt  a  system  of  phi- 
losophy known  as  materialism,  by  which  every- 
thing reasonable  was  denied  and  thought  w^as 
reduced  to  physical  forces  at  play  in  the  brain. 
The  universe  was  without  a  Head,  and  force 
was  without  a  law  or  a  Lawgiver.    This  left 

83 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF  DEMOCRACY 

spirit  a  nonentity,  immortality  a  delusion,  and 
God  was  dismissed  as  irrational. 

They  banished  the  Bible  from  the  public 
school  systems,  turned  the  Sabbath  into  a  Con- 
tinental Sunday  of  beer-drinking,  gambling, 
and  brutal  pleasures,  and  made  the  most  de- 
bauching of  drinks  known  to  mankind  the  na- 
tional beverage — beer,  the  scientific  effect  of 
which  on  its  drinker  is  that  the  last  traits  that 
are  developed  in  the  human  evolution  are  the 
first  to  go  down.  As  soon  as  one  begins  the 
drinking  of  beer  he  commences  to  move  down- 
stairs. After  a  while  he  drags  his  feet  along, 
drags  his  thoughts,  and  drags  his  soul.  Speak 
to  one,  and  his  voice  is  not  a  human  voice  but 
a  brutal  growl,  and  the  degrading  effect  seen 
in  every  individual  beer-drinker  showed  forth 
in  the  nation  that  adopted  it. 

When  religion  had  evaporated  there  was 
nothing  for  morals  to  stand  on.  You  cannot 
build  a  moral  system  without  a  religious  basis. 
You  cannot  have  a  brotherhood  of  man  unless 
you  have  the  Fatherhood  of  God  to  establish 
the  relation.  Drag  down  on  the  Godward  side 
and  the  manward  side  will  not  hold  up.  I 
never  knew  a  man  or  nation  that  had  a 
stronger  left-hand  grasp  on  human  brother- 
hood than  his  right-hand  hold  on  God  and 
destiny.    Some  people  think  religion  and  mor- 

84 


PAGAN  INROADS 

als  are  separate  and  can  be  kept  in  different 
compartments.  They  are  not  separate  nor  dif- 
ferent parts  of  something.  They  are  absolutely 
one.  Religion  is  morality  in  relation  to  God. 
Morality  is  religion  in  relation  to  man.  When 
religion  and  morals  were  demolished  the  bru- 
talizing effect  of  her  skepticism,  low-grade  life, 
and  beer-drinking  had  completed  the  oblitera- 
tion of  a  great  Christian  nation. 

To  know  by  fruitage  has  the  Saviour's  sanc- 
tion. The  civilized  world  in  death-grapple  is 
trying  to  throw  off  the  ideals  of  German  ra- 
tionalism, to  repudiate  her  system  of  criticism, 
and  even  to  find  a  better  philosophy.  Why? 
Because  the  race  stands  appalled  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  fruit  that  grew  on  that  tree. 
A  corrupt  tree  cannot  bring  forth  good  fruit. 
It  was  no  different  on  this  side  of  the  water. 
The  attempt  to  get  an  expression  from  five 
hundred  German  professors  in  American  col- 
leges condemning  the  policy  of  frightfulness 
of  their  Fatherland  fell  flat.  With  only 
eighteen  exceptions  they  all  stood  for  it. 

Let  us  take  our  stand  against  any  imposition 
of  their  theology,  their  morals,  their  philoso- 
phy, or  their  critical  methods  upon  our  church. 
Their  emasculated  Christianity  will  not  do  in 
America,  Their  rationalized  Christ  is  not  our 
Saviour.     Their  crazy-quilt  Bible  is  not  our 

85 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF  DEMOCRACY 

Holy  Scripture.  Their  brutalizing  beverage 
ought  to  go  out  of  America  forever.  You  can't 
prop  up  moral  distinctions  so  they  will  stand 
without  religion  fbr  a  base.  You  can't  build 
a  religion  on  negatives.  When  you  get  far 
enough  away  from  it  the  whole  story  of  the  so- 
called  higher  critic  will  appear  the  silliest  fad 
and  the  most  excuseless  craze  ever  adopted 
by  Christian  citizens  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
a  process  by  which  they,  seated  on  the  outer 
end,  sawed  off  the  limb  of  the  tree  of  life  on 
which  they  themselves  were  resting. 

The  process  which  had  decivilized  Germany 
would  be  equally  destructive  to  Christian 
democracy  in  the  United  States ;  and  if  I  had 
my  way  as  an  American,  I  would  have  my 
Uncle  Sam  face  that  stairway  down  which 
Germany  ran  to  ruin  and  put  his  feet  on  every 
one  of  those  steps,  and  walk  over  them  in  the 
opposite  direction — upstairs. 

The  Steps  Upstairs 

1.  We  should  maintain  the  strictest  kind  of 
law  enforcement  and  an  educational  agitation 
that  will  hold  all  officers  to  the  standard  of 
their  oath  of  office,  from  the  President,  who 
swears  to  protect,  defend,  and  enforce  the  Con- 
stitution, to  the  sheriff  and  policeman,  who  are 
under  oath  to  enforce  without  fear  or  favorit- 

86 


PAGAN  INROADS 

ism  the  laws  of  the  State  and  the  ordinances 
of  the  cities.  We  will  never  consent  to  the 
nomination,  or,  if  nominated,  the  election  of 
any  man  as  President  of  these  United  States 
who  opposes  prohibition,  would  be  lukewarm 
in  its  enforcement,  or  who  proposes  to  tinker 
with  the  people's  law  rather  than  make  the 
law  a  success  and  the  government  a  triumph 
by  seeing  that  the  people  live  up  to  their  own 
standards.  We  should  follow  this  policy  down 
the  line  to  governors,  sheriffs,  district  at- 
torneys, and  other  representatives  of  the  peo- 
ple. Let  reverence  for  law  be  breathed  upon 
the  conscience  of  America.  A  republic  is  in 
danger  at  this  point.  The  people  are  so  close 
to  the  processes  of  making  their  own  laws  that 
they  are  not  in  awe  of  the  lawbook  or  the 
courthouse,  as  they  are  where  their  govern- 
ment is  handed  down  to  them  from  a  so-called 
"higher  source."  All  the  more  reason  why  we 
should  teach  respect  for  law,  obey  it  ourselves, 
and  see  that  it  is  obeyed  by  others.  If  we  con- 
tinue to  sow  the  spirit  of  lawlessness  with 
reference  to  the  Eighteenth  Amendment,  we 
will  reap  the  whirlwind  when  it  is  too  late  to 
get  to  shelter. 

2.  We  should  inaugurate  a  total  abstinence 
pledge  signing  campaign  in  view  of  the  help 
that  abstainers  are  now  getting  by  the  removal 

87 


THE   DIVINE  RIGHT  OF  DEMOCRACY 

of  organized  and  legalized  temptation  from 
their  path.  A  man  may  get  liquor  in  some 
places  if  he  hunts  it,  but,  thank  God,  the  cities 
of  America  are  not  hunting  down  men  who 
wish  to  quit,  and  now  that  prohibition  has 
crippled  the  public  traffic,  education  and 
scientific  instruction  in  the  effect  of  alcohol, 
narcotics  and  opiates  with  appeal  to  the  will 
through  the  motives  of  home  life,  and  the 
power  of  example  should  supplement  the  pur- 
pose of  the  law  by  eliminating  the  private 
habit.  Beer  is  the  most  brutalizing  beverage 
known  to  man.  It  leaves  brutality  uncon- 
trolled, and  one  needs  no  rfurther  proof  of  this 
truth  known  than  Germany. 

3.  It  is  time  for  church,  state,  and  school  to 
start  an  educational  and  moral  suasion  cam- 
paign against  the  personal  use  of  the  doped 
cigarette  foisted  upon  the  country  in  war 
times.  Men  who  were  able  to  throw  off  the 
nicotine  in  the  activities  of  the  field,  the 
march,  and  the  strenuous  life  of  the  trench  are 
going  to  pieces  utterly  in  the  sedentary  habits 
which  they  enter  upon  their  return  to  civil  life. 
Their  eyes  must  be  opened  to  this  poisonous 
habit.  The  tobacco  interests,  by  their  methods, 
have  gone  so  far  beyond  the  pale  of  decency 
that  they  should  be  rebuked  by  the  American 
people  for  trampling  on  their  rights  in  war 

88 


PAGAN  INROADS 

times.  Those  lying  advertisements,  "Cigar- 
ettes won  the  war,"  should  bring  the  blush  of 
shame  to  every  American  who  fought  or  had  a 
loved  one  in  the  war.  We  must  do  something 
about  this.  If  we  do  not  wake  up,  the  tobacco 
interests  will  repeal  every  law  we  now  have 
against  selling  cig;arettes  to  minors.  They 
would  not  only  make  it  universal  among  men, 
but  they  are  organizing  to  make  it  the  custom 
among  women  and  children. 

4.  As  we  have  seen  what  a  secularized  nation 
comes  to  when  it  casts  off  the  true  religion, 
and  lest  we  go  the  same  way,  we  should  insist 
that  the  whole  Bible,  fountain  of  classic  Eng- 
lish, the  book  that  has  given  us  our  national 
ideals  and  our  moral  standards,  the  book  that 
taught  us  the  equality  of  man  and  the  need  for 
his  moral  betterment,  shall  come  back  to  the 
public  schools  of  the  United  States  as  it  was 
before  certain  hyphenated  citizens  who  owe 
their  first  allegiance  to  a  foreign  potentate, 
crowded  it  out  of  the  back  door  of  the  little 
red  school  house  from  four  fifths  of  our  Amer- 
ican cities,  and  would  thus  deprive  our  Amer- 
ican citizens  of  an  intellectual  foundation  for 
American  morality.  The  Bible  that  Washing- 
ton kissed,  that  Lincoln  loved,  that  Theodore 
Roosevelt  lived,  should  return  as  the  heritage 
of  American  children,  that  they  may  have  some 

88 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF   DEMOCRACY 

knowledge  of  the  book  that  has  made  our  type 
of  eivilizatioii  possible. 

5.  Instead  of  importing  the  Continental 
Sunday,  with  its  loose  morals  and  low  ideals, 
we  should  replace  our  American  Sabbath  on 
its  civic  foundations  as  it  stood  before  it  was 
trampled  in  the  dust  of  our  American  cities  to 
establish  on  its  ruins  a  Continental  Sunday, 
foreign  to  our  forms  of  government  and  in- 
imical to  the  morals  of  our  people.  We  need 
the  Sabbath  day  for  the  sake  of  the  men  and 
women  who  toil,  for  the  support  of  the  family 
life  of  the  republic,  that  the  father  and  mother 
who  are  separated  in  the  shop  and  factories 
of  the  week  may  have  one  day  when  the  old 
loves  and  sentiments  that  brought  them  to- 
gether shall  reassert  their  potent  spell  over 
their  lives  and  hold  together  the  affections  of 
home  life.  We  need  it  for  the  opportunity  of 
the  church  to  keep  the  moral  standards  parallel 
with  the  mental  advance  and  material  welfare. 
We  need  it  for  the  intellectual  life  of  Amer- 
ican workers  and  for  the  sake  of  decent  cour- 
tesy to  the  prevailing  religion. 

6.  We  should  establish  red-light  abatement 
laws  in  every  city  and  State  and  the  teaching 
of  old-fashioned  American  morality  that 
stands  for  the  clean  life  for  two,  for  equal 
standards  of  decency  in  both  sexes,  for  a  pure 

90 


PAGAN  INROADS 

American  home  life  such  as  our  Pilgrim 
Fathers  and  mothers  brought  to  Plymouth 
Rock  and  planted  on  American  soil,  the 
fruition  of  which  is  American  civilization. 

7.  We  must  give  a  strong  push  on  the  wheels 
of  the  anti-prizefighting  movement.  Our  boys 
saw  enough  scenes  of  blood  and  fields  of 
carnage  during  the  war,  which  is  altogether 
responsible  for  this  present  carnival  of  crime 
we  are  witnessing,  without  our  still  further 
brutalizing  mankind  by  turning  bruising  and 
blood-letting  into  a  sport  for  the  education  of 
our  youth  away  from  the  higher  reaches  of 
their  manhood  to  the  lower  levels  of  the  brute. 

There  is  hardly  a  State  where  organized  and 
well-financed  propaganda  is  not  at  work  at 
this  moment  and  scarcely  a  State  Legislature 
can  meet  without  the  sinister  influence  of  the 
confederated  interests  that  prey  showing  their 
hand.  I  have  just  crossed  the  continent  and 
been  in  sixteen  States,  and  in  every  one  the 
symptoms  were  unmistakable.  One  State  was 
legalizing  race-track  gambling.  Another  was 
trying  to  repeal  the  law  against  the  selling  of 
cigarettes  to  minors.  Another  was  trying  to 
annul  the  red-light  abatement  laws.  Four  of 
them  were  seeking  to  nullify  the  Eighteenth 
Amendment,  though  every  officer  in  them  knew 
that  his  oath  of  office  required  him  to  provide 

91 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF   DEMOCRACY 

for  its  enforcement.  Three  States  were  trying 
to  abolish  the  Sabbath  laws  that  protect  the 
workingmen  and  their  homes.  In  all  of  these 
States  were  newspapers  that  before  prohibi- 
tion banished  liquor  advertisements,  were  not 
in  partnership  with  the  liquor  traffic,  and  yet 
were  taking  this  whole  propaganda  of  evil  and 
giving  it  advocacy  and  respectability.  It  is  no 
time  for  the  church  to  go  to  sleep.  There  is  a 
call  for  good  fighting  all  along  the  line. 

8.  For  instance,  we  are  going  to  be  com- 
pelled, unless  there  is  a  great  clean-up  in  the 
moving  picture  industry,  to  insist  on  a  na- 
tional censorship  and  a  board  of  supervision 
over  the  motion  picture  industry.  One  of  the 
greatest  business  enterprises  which  has  grown 
in  the  last  decade  to  marvelous  proportions 
should  help  America  by  its  lessons  of  human 
uplift  and  not  degrade  popular  thought  and 
character  by  purveying  base  and  debauching 
influences.  These  shows  should  feature  the 
beautiful,  clean  home  life  in  America  and  not 
simply  display  the  looseness  and  vileness  that 
winds  up  in  the  divorce  courts.  They  should 
picture  some  of  the  great  political  and  busi- 
ness enterprises  and  not  limit  themselves  to 
the  exploitation  of  crookedness,  immorality, 
and  crime  that  makes  viciousness  popular. 

9.  Then  we  are  in  for  a  great  anti-gambling 

92 


PAGAN  INROADS 

crusade  and  must  ultimately  shut  out  from 
the  mails,  telegraphs,  and  interstate  service 
the  transportation  and  sale  of  race-track  bet- 
ting odds,  their  ticket  issues,  and  advertise- 
ments. We  cannot  have  a  great  United  States 
and  an  honorable  people  if  we  disintegrate  the 
business  integrity  of  America  and  permit  the 
spreading  of  the  gambling  mania  through  our 
nation's  mails,  over  the  wires,  and  by  means  of 
other  public  service.  Every  business  transac- 
tion a  man  engages  in  advances  industry,  aids 
home  life,  and  builds  his  own  integrity.  If 
one  goes  into  a  butcher  shop  and  spends  $1.50 
for  a  beefsteak,  he  thus  serves  the  three  parties 
concerned,  but  if  he  goes  into  a  gambling  es- 
tablishment he  will  do  one  of  two  things. 
He  will  get  something  for  nothing  or  nothing 
for  something.  If  he  gets  nothing  for  some- 
thing, he  is  a  fool;  if  he  gets  something  for 
nothing,  he  is  a  thief.  But  he  has  not  been 
engaged  in  a  business  transaction ;  he  has  not 
built  up  his  honor,  but  he  has  disintegrated  his 
integrity  and  character,  and  there  is  nothing 
more  insidious  than  this  mania. 

I  believe  that  the  women  of  our  country 
have  saved  our  civilization  in  the  past.  I  have 
seen  men  saturated  with  tobacco,  sogged  with 
intoxicants,  stained  with  personal  vices,  their 
lips  soiled  with  profanity,  and  their  natures 

98 


THE   DIVINP]   RIGHT   OF  DEMOCRACY 

groveling ;  and  have  said  to  myself,  "What  will 
become  of  the  next  generation  with  such 
fathers?"  Still,  in  such  homes  were  pure, 
hard-working,  devoted  Christian  women,  and 
they  had  character  and  pure  blood  enough  to 
counteract  the  evil  fathers  and  give  to  us  clean 
American  children  with  the  possibilities  of 
splendid  usefulness  locked  up  in  their  souls. 
But  a  generation  ago,  say  when  we  were  chil- 
dren, there  came  a  time  when  the  women  mis- 
stepped.  One  can  recall  the  days  when  the 
progressive  euchre  fad  swept  the  women  of  the 
land,  and  there  were  people  that  boasted  that 
they  had  played  progressive  euchre  five  after- 
noons in  a  week  and  seven  evenings.  A  study 
of  criminology  at  first  hand  in  our  jails  and 
penitentiaries,  shows  a  large  number  of  men 
now  serving  sentences  who  were  always 
thieves  because  of  maternal  inheritance.  We 
must  stamp  this  habit  out  of  our  life  and  this 
mania  out  of  our  civilization  if  we  would  have 
a  business  integrity  that  shall  maintain  Amer- 
ican honor  among  the  nations  of  the  earth. 

10.  We  maintain  that  the  protection  of  the 
American  flag  and  all  consular  service  must 
be  withdrawn  from  any  citizen  of  these  United 
States  who  goes  into  Mexico,  China,  Africa, 
or  to  any  foreign  country  to  engage  in  a  traffic 
or  to  set  up  an  institution  which  has  been  out- 

94 


PAGAN  INROADS 

lawed  by  the  Constitution  and  statutes  of  these 
United  States.  Our  nation  cannot  consistently 
involve  itself  in  international  difficulties  to 
protect  disloyal  citizens  of  our  land  in  doing 
that  against  the  weaker  people  of  other  nations 
for  which  we  would  imprison  them  if  the  of- 
fense were  committed  at  home. 

11.  Americanism  is  that  achievement  of  na- 
tional unity  as  an  equipment  for  world  service, 
which  the  nation  found  it  needed  at  the  out- 
break of  the  Great  War,  and  which  need  was 
just  as  imperative  before  we  found  it  out.  To 
this  end  I  would  insist  on  the  English  lan- 
guage as  the  exclusive  basis  for  American  edu- 
cation in  all  of  our  public  schools  up  to  the 
eighth  grade,  and  as  the  medium  of  communi- 
cation through  every  American  published 
newspaper.  If  we  must  have  a  foreign  lan- 
guage press  in  this  country,  there  should  be 
an  American  translation  in  a  parallel  column 
for  every  line  in  a  foreign  tongue.  We  must 
eliminate  these  little  foreign-language  groups 
segregated  from  the  rest  of  our  people  and 
from  the  assimilative  processes  of  America, 
that  keep  up  their  Old- World  customs,  plan- 
ning disloyalty  in  peace  time  and  plotting 
treason  in  war  time.  One  language  would  be 
a  unifier  among  us. 

12.  The  divine  right  of  democracy  implies 

95 


THE   DIVINE  RIGHT   OF  DEMOCRACY 

the  sovereign  right  of  the  people  to  rule  them- 
selves, to  make  their  own  government,  to  write 
their  laws,  direct  their  institutions,  and  select 
their  officers  for  executive,  judicial,  and  legis- 
lative branches  of  their  own  service.  We  shall, 
therefore,  stand  for  the  direct  primary  in  every 
State.  Through  it  the  people  can  name  the 
candidates  of  their  own  parties,  after  which 
the  same  sovereign  people  may  select  between 
candidates  so  chosen  by  their  parties  after  the 
unfit  have  been  weeded  out.  We  should  resist 
every  attempt  to  side-track  the  direct  primary 
as  an  assault  upon  the  rights  of  the  people  to 
choose  self-government  and  to  rule.  We  should 
stand  for  it  against  all  comers  as  the  primary 
right  of  the  individual  to  eliminate  the  bosses 
and  to  govern  his  own  country.  And  in  view 
of  the  efforts  of  the  politicians  in  the  National 
Conventions  of  1920  to  defeat  the  will  and 
choice  of  the  people  we  should  extend  the 
direct  primary  to  every  State;  and  its  appli- 
cation to  the  choice  of  the  Presidential  and 
Vice-Presidential  candidates,  thus  making  un- 
necessary the  holding  of  another  national 
nominating  convention  as  long  as  the  republic 
endures. 

13.  Popular  government  machinery  de- 
mands the  initiative,  referendum,  and  the  re- 
call for  the  fullest  expression  of  the  people's 

96 


PAGAN  INROADS 

power.  When  God  made  man  capable  of  self- 
government  and  told  him  to  have  dominion, 
he  made  kings  unnecessary  and  bosses  inex- 
cusable. All  the  machinery  necessary  to  en- 
able men  to  start  any  measure  for  the  statute 
books  or  the  Constitution,  to  call  for  a  referen- 
dum of  the  people's  judgment  on  any  measure 
passed  by  their  representatives,  or  to  recall 
any  officer  who  betrays  by  his  falsity  or  proves 
unfit  by  his  weakness  to  meet  the  responsibil- 
ity with  which  he  is  intrusted,  is  necessary  for 
the  expression  of  the  people's  right  to  rule 
their  own  land,  to  direct  their  own  public  serv- 
ants, and  to  discharge  the  unfit. 

14.  This  is  a  Christian  nation.  The  su- 
preme court  was  right  when  it  declared  it  so 
and  said  that  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testament  are  an  integral  part  of  our 
common  law,  that  the  Sabbath  is  incorporated 
into  the  second  article  of  the  Constitution, 
that  God  is  the  recognized  Sovereign  over  all, 
that  the  Bible  is  his  Word,  that  the  govern- 
ment is  his  agent  for  the  promotion  of  mo- 
rality, religion,  brotherhood,  and  the  public 
welfare,  and  that  these  institutions,  pillars  of 
support  for  our  civilization,  shall  stand,  and 
the  gates  of  Bolshevism,  the  I.  W.  W.,  an- 
archy, and  the  lawlessness  that  circumvents 
the  Fourteenth   and  Fifteenth  Amendments 

97 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT  OF  DEMOCRACY 

and  brazenly  attempts  the  Eighteenth  Amend- 
ment shall  not  prevail  against  us.  For  when 
these  principles  prevail,  "Violence  shall  no 
more  be  heard  within  our  streets,  wasting  nor 
destruction  in  our  borders ;  but  they  shall  call 
our  walls  salvation  and  our  gates  praise." 

The  Church  of  Christ  has  a  supreme  task 
and  a  program  for  its  opportunity.  By  voice 
and  vote,  by  platform  and  press,  through  the 
sights  and  sounds  of  street  speeches  she  will 
stand  for  the  government,  the  Constitution, 
the  laws,  the  flag.  She  should  stand  with  any 
party  candidate  or  officer  who  faithfully 
executes  our  laws,  fight  for  him  as  long  as  he 
keeps  these  standards,  and  turn  against  him 
and  his  party  if  they  abandon  the  right  and 
fail  to  serve  the  people  and  their  government. 

We  nail  to  our  masthead  no  such  ignoble 
sentiment  as  "My  country,  right  or  wrong," 
but  "My  country,  may  she  ever  be  right;  but 
should  she  go  wrong,  God  give  me  grace  and 
strength  to  help  set  her  right." 

We  do  not  seek  to  unite  the  church  with  the 
state,  nor  to  make  the  church  domineer  the 
state,  nor  to  let  the  state  oppress  the  church, 
but  we  will  help  to  see  that  the  church  aids  the 
state  in  maintaining  good  government,  and 
thus  to  furnish  a  fulcrum  of  uplift  for  the 
moral  betterment  of  mankind. 

98 


VI 


THE  FUNCTION  OP  LAW  IN  CIVIL 
GOVEKNMENT 

Human  laws  are  intended  to  be  applications 
of  the  laws  of  nature  to  protect  natural  rights. 
And,  as  Blackstone  says,  "a  law  that  contra- 
venes the  law  of  God  or  a  law  of  nature  is  no 
law  at  all."  The  Jewish  and  Christian  Scrip- 
tures claim  to  be  expressions  of  the  laws  of 
nature  and  the  will  of  God;  and,  if  it  could 
be  demonstrated  that  in  any  material  fact  they 
contravene  or  run  counter  to  nature  (which  is 
the  certain  expression  of  the  will  of  God), 
their  teaching  to  that  extent  would  be  worth- 
less. 

The  object  of  human  law  is  not  to  enact  the 
laws  of  nature  but  to  enforce  them,  furnishing 
sanctions  by  putting  a  penalty  to  their  viola- 
tion. But  their  execution  is  beyond  the  reach 
of  all  created  intelligence.  All  violations  of 
natural  laws  depend  upon  two  causes,  igno- 
rance and  inability.  The  first  does  not  neces- 
sarily involve  moral  turpitude,  though  it  finds 
no  excuse  in  the  realm  of  nature.    The  second 

99 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF   DEMOCRACY 

is  the  result  of  abuse  that  produced  the  in- 
ability. With  the  abuse  human  law  has  noth- 
ing to  do.  Nature  demands  the  use  of  every 
faculty,  settles  her  own  accounts,  and  never 
pardons  a  delinquent.  Her  jurisdiction  ex- 
tends only  to  the  realm  of  justice,  "An  eye  for 
an  eye,  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth."  But  while 
"eye"  and  "tooth"  by  abuse  lose  ability  to  per- 
form their  functions,  they  cannot  escape  the 
demands  of  nature  nor  the  consequences  of 
their  inability  to  perform  such  natural  func- 
tions. 

The  people  of  an  Eastern  city  were  recently 
excited  at  the  discovery  of  a  living,  newly  born 
infant  on  a  pile  of  city  rubbish,  cut  and 
bruised  by  being  cast  away.  A  charitable 
mother  of  natural  instincts  resuscitated  and 
gave  it  a  mother's  care.  The  difference  be- 
tween these  two  mothers  was  not  that  nature 
had  denied  the  one  the  natural  instincts  of  a 
mother  and  bestowed  them  upon  the  other. 
Even  admitting  a  difference  by  heredity,  that 
difference  can  never  be  traced  to  a  gift  of  na- 
ture, for  nature  in  a  purely  natural  state  never 
makes  such  distinctions.  No  gorilla  in  the 
jungles  of  Africa  or  grizzly  bear  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains  would  cast  off  or  refuse  protection 
to  an  offspring,  but  would  defend  it  at  the 
peril  of  her  own  existence. 

100 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  LAW 

When  the  infant  in  question  was  discovered 
the  offending  mother  was  sought  for  to  be 
punished,  but,  to  the  astonishment  of  some  of 
the  wise  jurists,  no  law  could  be  found  in 
statutes  of  that  State  to  meet  the  case ;  and  it 
might  be  both  interesting  and  instructive  to 
say  that  no  human  legislator  ever  attempted  to 
legislate  on  this  subject.  To  command  a 
mother  to  protect  her  offspring  is  a  law  which 
finite  beings  can  neither  mate  nor  enforce.  In 
vain  do  we  seek  to  find  such  a  law  in  the  rec- 
ords of  antiquity.  Neither  Solon,  Lycurgus, 
nor  Justinian  has  jurisdiction  here.  None 
but  the  Creator  can  enact  such  a  law,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  no  other  has  power  to  en- 
force it.  No  law  but  that  of  love  can  reach 
this  point;  and  this  can  never  be  produced  by 
statutes,  pains,  and  penalties.  No  law  can 
compel  a  mother  to  take  care  of  her  offspring. 
Compulsion  finds  no  place  in  moral  actions. 

When  a  mother  refuses,  who  can  compel, 
and  in  what  way  ?  God  himself  would  be  impo- 
tent, as  he  has  but  one  remedy — to  change 
her  nature,  and  this  only  by  her  own  consent 
and  cooperation,  for  "a  good  tree  cannot  bring 
forth  evil  fruit,  neither  can  a  corrupt  tree 
bring  forth  good  fruit."  Where  is  the  remedy? 
Certainly  not  in  law.  If  every  human  mother 
should  refuse  to  own  and  care  for  her  offspring, 

101 


THE  DIVINE  RIGHT  OF  DEMOCRACY 

where  would  be  the  difficulty  and  what  the 
remedy?  The  difficulty  would  be  in  the  cor- 
ruption or  loss  of  natural  instinct;  and  the 
only  remedy  is  its  restoration. 

It  seems  startling  that  the  perpetuity  of  the 
human  race  should  hang  on  such  a  seemingly 
slender  thread  as  maternal  instinct;  but  no 
more  so  than  that  the  whole  material  fabric 
of  nature  should  hang  on  an  invisible  and  in- 
comprehensible force  we  call  gravity.  Gravity 
unifies  and  upholds  the  material  universe. 
Love  does  the  same  in  the  moral  realm,  while 
faith  prompts  the  obedience  of  all  moral  be- 
ings. Human  authority  may  prevent  an  im- 
moral act,  but  neither  human  nor  divine  au- 
thority can  ever  compel  an  unwilling  moral 
action. 

When  creative  energy  had  been  expended  in 
the  formation  of  the  planetary  system,  had 
these  planets  been  given  volition  and  free  will 
by  a  decree  of  the  Creator,  their  motions  and 
harmony  would  be  no  longer  under  his  control. 
If,  in  the  exercise  of  their  freedom,  they  should 
refuse  obedience,  but  one  remedy  would  be 
left:  their  destruction.  But  in  the  case  of 
man  who  had  offspring,  far  different. 

Lav7  and  Its  Penalty 
If  we  look  for  the  ultimate  source  of  all  prog- 

102 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  LAW 

ress,  we  find  it  in  the  above  title,  "Law  and  Its 
Penalty." 

Law  to  the  obedient  means  protection.  Pen- 
alty to  the  disobedient  begets  fear.  To  all  in- 
ferior creatures  the  fear  of  penalty  is  the  sum 
total  of  their  wisdom.  To  man,  an  intelligent 
creature,  "the  fear  of  the  Lord  [lawmaker]  is 
the  beginning  of  wisdom."  Fear  to  the  whole 
animal  world  is  the  means  of  protection  and 
progress. 

"Law  is  a  rule  of  action,"  says  Blackstone. 
This  he  took  from  the  Hebrew  idea  of  law  an- 
swering to  a  line  or  straight-edge  (Hebrew, 
Tarah).  To  verify  this,  see  examples  of  law 
in  the  New  Testament.  In  Paul's  controversy 
with  the  Jews  they  contended  that  law  was  a 
rule  of  justification.  Paul  contended  that  the 
law  condemned  us.  See  his  analogy :  "If  there 
had  been  a  law  that  could  have  given  life, 
verily  righteousness  had  been  by  the  law."  So 
if  there  had  been  a  line  that  could  make  the 
crooked  straight,  straightness  had  been  by  the 
line."  "The  law  maketh  nothing  perfect."  The 
line  maketh  nothing  straight. 

But,  says  the  psalmist,  "The  law  of  the  Lord 
is  perfect";  the  line  of  the  Lord  is  straight. 
Paul  says,  "The  law  is  tutor  to  bring  us  unto 
Christ."  The  law  put  upon  a  bad  man's  char- 
acter shows  his   departure  from   truth   and 

103 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT  OF  DEMOCRACY 

right.  The  line  put  upon  a  stick  of  timber 
shows  its  bumps  and  protuberances.  To  frame 
a  building  by  a  crooked  square  would  destroy 
the  material.  To  govern  mankind  by  bad  or 
false  laws  will  destroy  families  and  nations. 
A  law  that  is  not  founded  in  the  law  of  nature 
is  not  law  (Blackstone).  A  falsehood  has  no 
absolute  existence  and  as  such  must  perish.  A 
counterfeit  is  only  a  false  representation,  has 
no  entity.  A  picture  is  only  the  shadow  of  a 
substance;  a  hypocrite  is  only  the  false  re- 
flection of  a  true  character.  A  law  reflecting 
false  principles  manufactures  destroying  in- 
dividuals and  nations.  Law  without  a  penalty 
is  a  misnomer;  remove  penalty  from  law  and 
it  becomes  only  advice.  The  whole  universe  is 
under  the  "reign  of  law,"  and  there  is  but  one 
law,  the  law  of  nature  (Blackstone) ;  and  all 
just  human  laws  are  only  true  reflections  from 
it;  and  all  unjust  laws  are  not  "bad  laws," 
but  are  "not  laws"  (Blackstone) ;  they  are 
only  false  reflections.  No  man  is  bound  by 
the  law  of  God  or  man  that  violates  a  law  of 
nature.  "Children,"  says  the  apostle,  "obey 
your  parents  in  the  Lord,"  but  a  parental  com- 
mand is  not  obligatory  on  a  child  when  it  re- 
quires a  violation  of  the  law  of  God. 

Law  is  the  only  natural  educator  in  the 
universe.    The  penalty  affixed  to  and  admin- 

104 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  LAW 

istered  by  the  laws  of  nature  regulates  the 
actions  of  all  creatures  below  man  in  the  ani- 
mal kingdom,  and  keeps  every  creature  in  the 
place  nature  assigned  it.  One  step  taken  out 
of  its  natural  sphere  is  met  by  the  penalty  of 
violated  law,  and  it  either  dies  or  returns  to 
its  obedience. 

"Said  a  downy  young  duck  to  a  fluffy  young  chick, 

'Come  down  to  the  water  and  swim ; 
By  the  best  kind  of  luck  the  right  path  I  can 
pick, 
And  the  horse  trough  is  full  to  the  brim.' 

"The  chick  saw  him  dive  and  come  up  still  alive, 

And,  full  of  ambition  and  pride, 
At  the  slip  of  his  toe,  he  felt  himself  go. 
And  fell  into  the  water  and  died." 

Had  that  young  "chick"  made  his  escape 
from  that  "horse  trough,"  never  again  would 
it  have  gone  into  water.  A  dog  will  never  be 
caught  in  the  same  trap  the  second  time,  but 
a  man  may  get  drunk,  and  in  that  helpless  con- 
dition get  his  ears,  toes,  and  fingers  frozen  off, 
or  meet  with  some  other  calamity ;  and,  instead 
of  his  learning  an  effectual  lesson  (as  in  the 
case  of  all  inferior  creatures),  he  is  only  quali- 
fied to  repeat  the  act,  as  we  see  by  actual  ob- 
servation ;  and  every  time  the  act  is  repeated, 
with  less  resistance,  until  nothing  remains  but 
105 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF  DEMOCRACY 

appetite;  and  this  in  Scripture  is  called  fixed- 
ness (Luke  16.  26),  and  "an  eternal  sin" 
(Mark  3.  29).  It  is  described  in  one  word, 
"Lost" — separated  from  everything  but  him- 
self, with  no  regard  for  anything  but  himself, 
out  of  harmony  with  himself,  with  no  resources 
to  draw  from  but  himself,  and  all  knowledge 
of  his  natural  relations  forever  lost.  This  is  a 
finished  character  produced  by  disobedience  to 
law;  and  "sin  is  lawlessness"  (1  John  3.  4). 
Hence  "Sin,  when  it  is  full  grown,  bringeth 
forth  death"  (James  1.  15). 

On  this  passage  Dr.  McKnight  says,  "The 
soul  which  the  Greek  philosophers  considered 
as  the  seat  of  the  appetites  and  passions  is 
called  by  Phila  to  thalm,  the  female  part  of 
our  nature,  and  the  spirit  to  aggen,  the  male 
part.  In  allusion  to  that  notion  James  repre- 
sents men's  lusts  as  an  harlot  who  entices  their 
understanding  and  will  into  its  impure  em- 
braces, and  from  that  conjunction  conceives 
sin,  and  sin  being  brought  forth,  it  immedi- 
ately acts  and  is  nourished  by  frequent  repeti- 
tion till  at  length  it  gains  such  strength  that 
in  its  turn  it  begets  death,  which  destroys  the 
sinner.  This  is  the  true  genealogy  of  sin  and 
death;  lust  is  the  mother  of  sin,  and  sin  the 
mother  of  death,  and  the  sinner  the  parent  of 
both." 

106 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  LAW 

This  idea  is  as  old  as  Job  28.  22.    In  speak- 
ing of  heavenly  wisdom  he  says, 

"Destruction    and    Death    [ahbaddon    vama- 
veth;  literally,  "the  devil  and  his  off- 
spring death"],  say 
We  have  heard  a  rumor  thereof  with  our 
ears." 

Here  Christ  is  represented  as  wisdom  {choch- 
moh)  and  the  "life"  and  offspring  of  God; 
and  "death"  the  offspring  of  the  devil.  See  in 
Rev.  9.  11  the  king  of  the  bottomless  pit  is 
called  Abaddon  and  Apollyon.  Abaddon  is 
his  name  in  Hebrew,  and  the  very  word  used 
by  Job,  and  Apollyon  is  the  same  in  Greek 
letters.  The  violation  of  law  produces  death, 
and  the  devil  is  the  father  of  lies.  The  law  of 
nature  is  the  only  rule  of  action  that  protects, 
and  fear  produces  obedience  to  the  law.  Hence 
"fear"  is  the  beginning  of  all  wisdom. 

Laws  in  all  human  governments  are  de- 
signed for  protection  and  education,  and  they 
accomplish  their  purposes  only  as  they  are 
obeyed  or  enforced.  When  no  law  is  made  no 
penalty  can  exist,  and  where  there  is  no  pen- 
alty there  is  no  fear,  and  when  there  is  no 
"fear"  education  has  failed  of  results. 

While  there  is  but  one  kingdom  of  nature, 
there  are  three  kingdoms  in  nature:  mineral, 

107 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF   DEMOCRACY 

vegetable,  and  animal.  A  stone  lives  in  but 
one,  the  mineral;  a  tree  in  two,  the  mineral 
and  the  vegetable;  a  man  in  all  three.  Each 
of  these  kingdoms  has  its  own  immutable  laws, 
strictly  administered  in  its  own  department. 
Death  is  the  penalty  of  transgression  in  all. 
And  death  has  been  defined  by  Herbert  Spen- 
cer, "to  be  out  of  harmony  with  environment.'' 
A  tree  lives  in  two  kingdoms,  its  root  in  the 
mineral  and  its  stock  and  branches  in  the  vege- 
table. Out  of  harmony  with  either  kingdom 
means  death  to  the  whole  tree.  It  can  die 
through  its  roots  or  through  its  trunk.  Out  of 
harmony  with  either  environment  destroys 
root  and  branches.  A  man  lives  in  all  three 
kingdoms,  and  is  circumscribed  by  the  laws  of 
each;  and  if  out  of  harmony  with  either,  the 
whole  man  dies.  Either  kingdom  had  power 
to  serve  him;  but  if  the  forces  of  either  turn 
against  him,  he  is  ruined. 

Now,  apply  these  scriptural  principles  to 
the  temperance  question!  There  is  no  law 
against  drunkenness;  and,  as  there  is  no  pen- 
alty, no  man  is  afraid  to  get  drunk.  He  is 
recognized  and  protected  as  one  of  the  social 
compact  and  cannot  be  restrained  until  he  per- 
forms an  overt  act  by  becoming  disorderly, 
disturbing  the  public  peace,  or  becoming  a 
menace  to  public  safety.    As  there  is  no  law 

108 


THE  FUNCTION  OP  LAW 

against  drunkenness  a  man  commits  no  crime 
when  he  gets  drunk  and  destroys  his  capability 
for  self-government;  he  is  still  a  member  of 
society,  is  protected,  and  cannot  be  restrained. 
Society  must  chance  the  danger  and  stand  the 
consequences,  take  all  the  risks  for  the  de- 
struction of  life  and  property,  and  protect  the 
man  in  what  is  termed  a  self-responsible  con- 
dition. This  may  be  right  under  moral  law; 
but  under  social  law  it  logically  will  demolish 
the  whole  social  fabric. 

Why  not  allow  a  man  to  build  a  combustible 
shanty  on  a  corner  lot  of  a  densely  populated 
city,  and  make  society  take  the  risk  of  future 
danger?  That  shanty  might  stand  for  years 
before  it  takes  fire,  causing  the  destruction  of 
life  and  property  I  Why  not  wait  till  the  dan- 
ger develops  into  results?  Why  not  allow  a 
man  to  trot  a  horse  or  run  an  automobile  a 
mile  in  two  minutes  through  the  streets  of  a 
populous  city?  Simply  for  the  reason,  that, 
while  in  society,  he  must  be  made  to  obey  the 
social  law.  Otherwise  he  should  be  put  out 
of  society. 

It  might  be  asked  if  this  be  so,  have  not 
the  temperance  people  under  this  rule  a  right 
to  refuse  to  pay  taxes  incurred  by  inconsistent 
legislation?  Not  if  the  law  was  the  fairlv  ex- 
pressed  will  of  society.  In  such  a  case  it 
109 


THE  DIVINE   RIGHT  OF  DEMOCRACY 

would  be  the  duty  of  temperance  people  to 
obey  the  law  or  (like  the  Pilgrim  Fathers) 
leave  the  social  compact.  A  refusal  to  obey 
such  a  law  would  not  be  a  crime  against  na- 
ture, nor  a  violation  of  natural  law,  but  it 
would  be  a  crime  against  society,  as  resistance 
would  engender  greater  evils  and  prevent 
moral  reform.  Resistance  would  change  the 
field  of  contest,  array  the  majority  against  the 
minority,  and  moral  reform  would  come  to 
an  end  by  arraying  against  it  a  superior  force, 
taking  it  out  of  its  own  sphere  of  action. 

The  "survival  of  the  fittest"  is  the  continu- 
ance of  that  which  fits  the  environments.  A 
moral  reform  can  never  succeed  against  su- 
perior numbers ;  and  in  a  political  or  physical 
contest  nothing  but  moral  forces  can  promote 
moral  reform;  and,  when  it  gains  a  firm  con- 
trol over  the  moral  sentiment  of  a  people,  it 
crystallizes  in  the  form  of  law.  It  is  then  out 
of  the  hands  of  the  moral  reformer. 

In  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Amend- 
ments to  our  Constitution  we  see  the  struggles 
of  a  moral  reform  with  a  pagan  institution ;  in 
the  Eighteenth  Amendment  are  crystallized  the 
results  of  two  thousand  years'  contest  with 
another;  and  the  laws  of  the  whole  Christian 
world  but  record  the  struggles  of  Christianity 
with  pagan  institutions.     No  pagan  nations 

110 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  LAW 

make  any  snch  history  or  show  any  such  prog- 
ress. Moral  reformers  are  always  in  the  mi- 
nority, and  moral  force  is  their  only  weapon. 
When  anything  is  substituted  for  this,  the 
moral  reformer  abandons  his  post  and  moral 
reform  is  at  an  end. 

The  Unwritten  Law 

Lord  Coke  once  said,  "The  reason  of  the  law 
is  the  life  of  the  law ;  and,  if  a  man  know  law 
and  know  not  the  reason  thereof,  he  will  soon 
forget  his  superficial  knowledge."  This  means 
that  a  knowledge  of  the  fundamental  principle 
and  purpose  of  law  is  a  safer  guide  than  the 
committing  of  specific  enactments. 

This  harmonizes  with  Paul's  great  state- 
ment that  "the  letter  killeth,  but  the  spirit 
giveth  life."  The  purpose  of  law  is  to  preserve 
order  and  protect  human  rights  of  life,  prop- 
erty, fame,  and  family.  Whatever  subverts 
this  principle  is  unlawful.  Whatever  helps 
it  is  in  harmony  with  the  principle  of  law. 

Accordingly,  Blackstone  affirms,  "If  a  judge 
is  sworn  to  administer  a  specific  law,  and  it 
can  be  shown  that  that  law  contravenes  the 
law  of  God  or  the  law  of  nature,  his  oath  binds 
him  to  set  aside  this  law,  not  on  the  ground 
that  it  is  bad  law,  but  on  the  ground  that  it  is 
not  law ;  for  if  the  object  of  the  lawmaker  was 
111  « 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT  OF  DEMOCRACY 

to  confine  his  law  to  the  law  of  God,  if  he  made 
a  mistake,  it  is  only  like  a  clerical  mistake,  so 
that  in  setting  aside  his  law,  the  judge  carries 
out  his  intention." 

It  is  perfectly  in  harmony  with  this  state- 
ment that  in  all  civilized  nations  and  through 
all  past  time  a  man  has  been  regarded  as  the 
natural  protector  of  his  home,  his  wife,  his 
sister,  and  his  daughter.  It  has,  therefore, 
been  recognized  that  when  the  good  name  of 
either  was  at  stake,  it  was  not  unmanly  for  the 
natural  protector  to  defend  her,  if  necessary, 
with  his  life ;  and  it  speaks  w  ell  for  American 
manhood  that  a  jury  cannot  be  found  that  will 
convict  a  man  of  murder  who  thus  defends  his 
own  household. 

This  unwritten  law  as  thus  defined,  instead 
of  being  a  retrograde  movement,  is  strongest 
in  the  most  highly  civilized.  The  statutes  cov- 
ering criminal  jurisprudence  are  all  man- 
made;  and  even  our  constitutions  were  each 
made  by  delegated  bodies  of  men ;  but  the  un- 
written law  is  the  law  of  nature,  and,  there- 
fore, the  law  of  God.  Any  laws  or  sentiments 
in  conflict  with  it  must  be  lower  laws,  for 
there  can  be  none  higher. 

When  Jesus  said,  "If  the  master  of  the  house 
had  known  in  what  hour  the  thief  was  coming, 
...  he  would  .  .  .  not  have  left  his  house  to 

112 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  LAW 

be  broken  through,"  he  was  giving  expression 
to  the  universally  recognized  truth  that  when 
a  house  is  attacked  a  man  does  not  have  to  call 
an  officer  but  is  himself  the  natural  protector 
of  his  own  domicile.  Civilization  has  accepted 
this  idea  of  Jesus  as  a  fundamental,  legal 
axiom,  but  it  has  a  wider  significance  than  men 
are  accustomed  to  give  it.  The  law  of  self- 
defense  is  universally  recognized;  and  the 
Saviour  quoted  with  approval  Adam's  refer- 
ence to  his  wife,  "This  is  now  bone  of  my 
bones,  and  flesh  of  my  flesh:  .  .  .  Therefore, 
shall  a  man  leave  his  father  and  his  mother, 
and  shall  cleave  unto  his  own  wife"  (Gen,  2. 
23).  One  has  the  same  right  to  protect  his 
wife  as  himself. 

Capital  Punishment 

One  of  the  most  notorious  defects  in  our 
civilization  is  the  utter  inadequacy  of  our 
criminal  law  and  its  administration  to  prevent 
murder.  We  have  in  single  States  more  mur- 
ders annually  than  in  all  of  Great  Britain. 
Our  laws  are  so  loose  that  a  shrewd  criminal 
with  money  can  slip  through,  and  the  ad- 
ministration is  so  lax  that  hardly  anyone  crim- 
inally inclined  is  afraid  of  the  law.  One  mur- 
derer gets  more  modern  sympathy  than  all  the 
murder  victims  in  the  State  combined. 

113 


THE   DIVINE   EIGHT   OF   DEMOCRACY 

Yet  with  crimes  increasing  and  murder 
abounding,  we  find  this  modern  sentiment  or- 
ganizing against  capital  punishment  even  for 
rape  and  murder. 

A  judge,  now  deceased,  who  for  thirty  years 
administered  the  law  in  the  Courts  of  Com- 
mon Pleas,  once  remarked  when  the  subject  of 
punishment  for  crime  was  under  discussion, 
"The  taking  of  life  after  due  process  of  the 
law  as  penalty  for  murder  seems  to  be  the  only 
form  of  life-taking  to  which  the  average  Amer- 
ican has  an  objection."  The  same  judge  once 
declared,  to  the  shocked  sensibilities  of  cer- 
tain practitioners  and  their  clients  in  the  old 
quarter  sessions,  that  drunkenness  could  not 
be  pleaded  before  him  in  extenuation  of  the 
crime  of  murder;  that  to  his  mind  it  was  an 
aggravation  of  the  offense. 

Recently  a  governor,  in  declining  to  inter- 
fere in  the  cases  of  two  culprits  for  whom 
drunkenness  was  advanced  as  an  excuse,  had 
the  courage  and  good  sense  to  decline  to  inter- 
fere on  any  such  grounds.  "I  may  say  that 
in  view  of  the  disregard  of  human  life  which 
some  elements  of  our  population  continually 
exhibit,  I  do  not  think  that  our  criminal  law 
for  the  punishment  of  murder  in  the  first  de- 
gree should  be  relaxed." 

Of  course  the  emotional  propaganda  that 
114 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  LAW 

proposes  to  change  our  fundamental  law  by  the 
elimination  of  capital  punishment  will  always 
try  to  quote  the  Bible.  Wherein  does  their 
fallacy  lie?  Where  all  fallacies  lie — in  a  con- 
clusion drawn  from  a  statement  of  fact;  false 
conclusions  drawn  from  the  facts  of  nature 
are  the  source  of  all  false  views  of  nature,  and 
erroneous  conclusions  drawn  from  statements 
of  revelation  form  the  basis  of  all  religious 
error. 

Science  is  from  scio  ("to  know")  and  the 
history  of  its  teaching  and  progress  would  be 
a  revelation  of  exploded  ideas,  human  thoughts 
perverting  true  lessons  of  nature's  facts.  All 
progression  is  based  on  ignorance.  Where 
there  is  no  ignorance  there  is  no  room  for 
progression. 

The  Legislature  of  Michigan  abolished  capi- 
tal punishment  from  a  conclusion  drawn  from 
the  Bible  statement  that  God  protected  Cain 
after  the  murder  of  his  brother  Abel.  "And 
Jehovah  appointed  a  sign  for  Cain,  lest  any 
finding  him  should  smite  him,"  From  this 
statement  they  conclude  that  God  was  opposed 
to  capital  punishment.  But  after  an  incalcula- 
ble amount  of  evil,  and  the  sacrifice  of  many 
innocent  lives,  the  conclusion  was  seen  to  be  a 
false  inference.  No  civil  government  was  then 
in  existence  where  life  could  be  taken  by  a 

116 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF   DEMOCRACY 

process  of  law,  and  individual  retribution  or 
mob  violence  was  what  was  forbidden.  This 
was  clearly  expressed,  "lest  anyone  finding 
him  should  smite  him."  But  as  soon  as  gov- 
ernment was  established  and  a  law  published 
the  criminal  was  turned  over  to  legal  authority 
and  the  mandate  issued,  "Whoso  sheddeth 
man's  blood,  by  man  shall  his  blood  be  shed." 

Have  the  criminals  who  do  outrageous 
things  any  rights  which  can  overbalance  the 
natural  instincts  of  manhood?  The  apostle 
to  the  Gentiles  says :  "They  that  practice  such 
things  are  worthy  of  death"  (Rom.  1.  32). 

A  study  of  the  thirteenth  chapter  of  Ro- 
mans, where  the  purpose  of  law  is  shown  to  be 
"a  terror  to  evildoers  and  a  praise  to  them 
that  do  well,"  and  the  administrator  of  law 
is  made  "an  avenger  for  wrath  to  him  that 
doeth  evil,"  will  show  the  basis  for  civil  gov- 
ernment and  indicate  its  right  to  take  even 
life  for  the  public  good. 

We  think  a  careful  investigation  will  show 
that  wherever  the  death  penalty  for  murder 
is  relaxed  murders  will  multiply.  In  our  tem- 
perance campaigns  embarrassing  statistics 
have  been  presented  to  the  "Drys"  about  the 
number  of  murders  in  Kansas  over  Nebraska, 
a  wet  State.  There  was  only  one  reason  that 
there  were  more  murders  in  the  dry  State  than 

116 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  LAW 

in  the  wet,  and  that  was  that  there  was  no 
death  penalty  for  any  crime  in  Kansas;  and 
its  penitentiaries  are  populated  with  murder- 
ers, who  came  across  the  State  lines  to  commit 
their  deed,  and  waited  their  opportunity  to 
entice  their  victims  where  it  would  be  safe  to 
kill  them,  and  where  for  such  deeds  they  were 
boarded  at  public  expense  in  as  palatial  quar- 
ters as  they  ever  expected  to  live  in,  with  a 
guarantee  of  it  for  the  balance  of  their  life, 
and  a  possibility  that  a  governor  could  pardon 
them  out  at  any  time.  Imprisonment  has  never 
been  a  sufficiently  strong  deterrent  to  keep  men 
from  committing  rape  or  murder. 


117 


VII 

THE  LATEST  EVOLUTION  OF 
AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY 

The  State  of  Oregon  was  founded  by  mis- 
sionaries. It  was  built  on  the  foundation  of 
the  Bible  and  church,  schools  and  homes.  Its 
pioneers  labored  for  the  glory  of  God  and  the 
weal  of  man.  It  has  collected  and  grown  a 
population  of  the  most  progressive  thinkers 
and  independent  actors  to  be  found  under  our 
flag.  It  has  more  colleges  in  proportion  to  its 
population  than  any  other  State.  It  is  a  land 
of  churches,  schools,  homes,  and  modern  sys- 
tems of  government.  I  believe  it  is  building 
the  purest  civilization  with  the  highest  moral 
standards  and  the  freest  popular  government 
of  any  State  in  the  Union  or  country  of  the 
world.  The  Australian  ballot  sj'stem  was  tried 
out  there  and  passed  on  to  the  other  States. 
The  direct  primary  nominations  were  inaugu- 
rated in  Oregon  and  have  since  been  adopted 
elsewhere.  The  anomaly  of  allowing  United 
States  senators  to  be  elected  for  the  people 
by  proxy  was  wiped  off  the  map  in  Oregon  and 
118 


THE  LATEST  EVOLUTION 

a  direct  method  of  permitting  the  people  to  se- 
lect their  own  senators  was  tried  out,  made 
good,  and  finally  was  embodied  in  the  federal 
Constitution,  so  that  every  State  in  the  Union 
could  follow  Oregon's  lead. 

There  came  a  period  of  corruption  and  po- 
litical chicanery.  Oregon  representatives  no 
longer  stood  for  the  ideals  of  the  people  and 
outraged  their  moral  sentiment  with  impunity. 
Conspiracies  to  rob  the  government  were  rife, 
and  land  fraud  cases  going  unrebuked  created 
no  comment.  But  the  people  secured  the 
direct  primary,  adopted  the  initiative,  referen- 
dum, and  recall,  so  that  they  could  select  their 
ow  n  leaders,  write  their  own  laws,  repeal  those 
that  did  not  suit  them,  rewrite  those  that 
ought  to  be  changed,  and  call  back  from  office 
those  whom  they  had  trusted  and  who  had 
proved  unworthy. 

Some  years  ago  I  lectured  on  this  subject 
before  the  Illinois  Bar  Association  and  was 
justifying  the  recall  of  judges  on  any  needed 
occasion  when  an  Illinois  judge  inquired: 
"How  many  judges  have  you  ever  recalled  in 
Oregon?" 

I  replied,  "Not  one." 

"Then  why  all  this  to-do  about  it?" 

I  said,  "You  may  have  the  recall  through 
generations  and  never  need  to  use  it,  but  the 
119 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF   DEMOCRACY 

States  that  do  not  have  it  need  it  all  the  time. 
It  is  like  the  Texan's  pistol.  The  minister, 
arguing  with  him  that  he  should  not  carry  a 
revolver,  said,  'How  long  have  you  carried  it?' 

"  'Ten  years.' 

"  'Have  you  ever  needed  to  use  it?' 

"  'No,'  he  replied.  'A  man  may  carry  one 
of  these  things  a  lifetime  and  never  need  it,  but 
if  it's  ever  called  for,  he  needs  it  bad.'  " 

The  more  I  travel  over  other  States  the  more 
justification  I  see  of  the  Oregon  system  of 
government.  We  have  the  best  State  govern- 
ment and  the  best  governed  cities,  with  the 
freest  expression  of  the  popular  will  and  the 
highest  type  of  Christian  civilization  to  be 
found  under  our  flag.  Most  of  the  moral  re- 
forms that  have  been  adopted — wiping  off  the 
stain  of  our  political  corruption,  open  gam- 
bling, lewdness  and  looseness,  closing  the  sa- 
loons on  Sunday,  then  at  midnight,  then  pro- 
hibiting the  liquor  traffic  day  and  night  for- 
ever— ^have  come  about  not  through  legislative 
enactments,  nor  through  the  help  of  profes- 
sional politicians,  but  have  come  to  pass 
through  the  initiation  by  the  people  them- 
selves, or  by  a  referendum  to  the  people,  or  by 
putting  the  fear  of  God  upon  the  politicians 
through  the  recall. 

A  list  of  the  bad  measures  rejected  by  the 
120 


THE  LATEST  EVOLUTION 

people  and  another  list  of  the  good  laws  ac- 
cepted since  we  have  possessed  the  parapher- 
nalia for  popular  government,  would  be  the 
most  powerful  argument  for  this  method  of 
legislation.  More  beneficent  laws  were  passed 
in  Oregon  in  the  first  ten  years  of  the  people's 
reign  than  in  the  entire  previous  history  of  the 
State. 

Every  defect  that  has  developed  in  our  de- 
mocracy can  be  cured  better  by  more  democ- 
racy than  by  less.  The  same  old  struggle  that 
began  on  the  dark  vortex  of  history  is  on  in  the 
United  States  to-day.  In  our  republic  it  is 
not  the  petty  tyrant  or  the  hereditary  sover- 
eign but  the  wily  politician  who  tries  to 
thwart  the  will  of  the  people.  And  the  upward 
trend  in  America  is  the  downing  of  the  po- 
litical boss  and  the  uprising  for  the  people's 
rights.  Our  patriotic  fathers  adopted  the 
right  principle  and  wrote  it  into  their  Con- 
stitutions, but  it  was  new  to  them ;  and  when 
they  came  to  apply  it  they  hedged  a  little. 
They  said,  "The  people  can  be  trusted  to  elect 
all  but  the  Presidents  and  the  United  States 
senators.  These  are  so  important  that  the 
people  might  make  a  mistake.  We  will  let 
them  elect  electors  who,  acting  for  them,  shall 
select  a  fit  man  for  President."  So  we  have 
inherited  our  cumbrous  system  of  Presidential 

lU 


THE   DIVINE   EIGHT   OF   DEMOCKACY 

elections  from  the  fearful  timidity  of  onr  fore- 
fathers. The  Constitution  provided  that  the 
people  might  elect  the  lower  House  of  Congress 
but  the  senators  should  be  elected  in  the  sev- 
eral State  legislatures. 

It  is  interesting  that  the  only  two  big  blun- 
ders made  by  the  founders  of  our  nation  Avere 
the  two  that  limited  the  people's  power  in  self- 
government.  The  first  one  has  been  corrected 
by  common  consent  through  the  custom  of 
practically  instructing  the  Presidential  elec- 
tors and  they  dare  not  ignore  that  instruction. 

Then  Oregon  led  the  States  in  taking  the 
election  of  senators  out  of  the  political  rings 
that  too  long  had  controlled,  and  permit- 
ting the  sovereign  people  to  say  who  should 
represent  them  in  the  highest  branch  of  the 
government.  They  passed  a  law  in  Oregon 
that  any  candidate  for  the  Legislature  must 
sign  one  of  three  statements.  Statement  num- 
ber one :  "I  will  always  vote  for  that  candidate 
for  United  States  senator  who  shall  have  re- 
ceived the  largest  number  of  votes  in  the  pri- 
mary election  preceding."  Statement  number 
two :  "I  will  vote  for  that  candidate  who  shall 
receive  the  highest  number  of  votes  within  my 
party."  Statement  number  three:  "I  decline 
to  say  beforehand  for  whom  I  will  vote  for 
senator."    Of  course  we  never  elected  anyone 

122 


THE  LATEST  EVOLUTION 

who  signed  the  third  plank,  and  only  a  few  who 
signed  the  second.  The  people  believed  in  the 
first  proposition.  They  selected  four  United 
States  senators  before  the  government  passed 
the  federal  amendment  electing  United  States 
senators  by  popular  votes,  and  they  never  al- 
lowed the  hands  of  the  political  boss  to  touch 
their  ark  of  the  covenant — the  integrity  of 
popular  government.  I  saw  a  Republican 
Legislature  with  practical  unanimity  elect 
George  E.  Chamberlain,  the  Democratic  candi- 
date, because  the  people  had  made  him  their 
choice.  This  has  been  criticized,  but  more  gen- 
erally commended,  for  the  people  cannot  be 
said  to  rule  unless  they  can  select  from  either 
party  the  man  they  want.  Party  machine  or 
no  machine,  the  people  of  America  have  set 
their  hand  to  the  task  of  asserting  the  people's 
choice  in  selecting  officers  and  writing  laws 
and  to  deal  with  the  men  who  dare  to  sell 
them  out  or  to  betray  their  trusts. 

When  the  people  had  selected  George  E. 
Chamberlain,  a  Democrat,  but  elected  an  over- 
whelmingly Republican  Legislature,  there  fol- 
lowed one  of  the  shrewdest  plays  ever  made 
to  get  honorable  men  to  betray  their  trust. 
The  old-line  politicians  proposed  to  get  up  a 
petition  to  be  signed  by  Republican  voters  of- 
fering to  exempt  these  elected  representatives 
123 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF   DEMOCRACY 

of  the  people  from  fulfilling  their  promise  in 
view  of  the  fact  that  the  unexpected  had  hap- 
pened and  the  people  had  chosen  a  Democrat. 

I  was  at  that  time  pastor  of  a  prominent 
Methodist  church  in  Portland,  and  as  bearing 
on  our  fight  for  the  people's  right  to  rule,  I 
delivered  an  address  which  was  printed  in 
seventy  newspapers  and  sent  in  popular  form 
to  every  member-elect  in  the  Oregon  Legisla- 
ture. It  did  its  share  in  the  making  of  history 
for  popular  rights.  It  was  entitled,  "That 
Petition  for  Perjury." 

It  recalls  some  matters  of  history.  In  1824 
there  were  four  Presidential  candidates — Wil- 
liam H.  Crawford,  Andrew  Jackson,  Henry 
Clay,  and  John  Quincy  Adams.  Jackson  re- 
ceived the  vast  majority  of  the  popular  vote 
and  a  majority  of  the  electoral  vote,  but  not 
having  a  constitutional  majority  over  all  the 
candidates,  there  was  no  election  and  the  se- 
lection was  thrown  into  Congress.  Clay,  who 
had  received  the  smallest  number  of  votes, 
withdrew  and  threw  his  influence  for  Adams, 
and  Crawford's  following  went  to  Adams,  so 
by  this  combination  the  people's  choice  was 
defeated.  Adams  made  Clay  his  secretary  of 
state  as  a  reward,  but  the  people  later  re- 
pudiated the  whole  scheme,  defeated  nearly 
every  representative  who  had  betrayed  them, 

124 


THE  LATEST  EVOLUTION 

and  in  four  years  afterward  triumphantly 
elected  Andrew  Jackson  as  the  people's  choice 
by  a  larger  proportional  majority  than  any 
other  candidate  has  received  save  Lincoln  on 
his  second  term. 

Another  lesson  from  history.  In  the  cam- 
paign of  1876  James  Russell  Lowell  was 
elected  Presidential  elector  from  Massachu- 
setts. He  was  a  Republican  and  was  for 
Hayes.  But  before  the  meeting  of  the  electoral 
college  Lowell  became  convinced  that  Tilden 
was  elected  by  the  people,  and  contemplated 
casting  his  electoral  vote  for  him.  He  finally 
decided  that  it  was  not  his  vote  to  cast,  but 
right  or  wrong,  it  belonged  to  the  people  who 
elected  him,  and  therefore  he  must  cast  that 
vote  as  they  expected  him  to  and  as  their  votes 
had  instructed  him. 

Jackson's  famous  slogan,  "Shall  the  People 
Rule?"  is  always  the  supreme  issue;  and,  when 
the  House  of  Representatives  made  bold  to 
trample  the  will  of  the  people  under  foot  the 
people  repudiated  their  act.  The  Congress  had 
a  constitutional  right  to  do  it,  but  no  moral 
right;  and  we  protested  that  our  Legislature 
had  no  moral  right  to  elect  any  other  than  the 
people's  choice  for  our  senator.  We  went 
down  to  the  Oregon  Legislature  to  see  the  re- 
sults, and  if  there  had  been  a  man  in  our  Legis- 

125 


THE  DIVINE   RIGHT   OF  DEMOCRACY 

lature  who  tried  to  use  his  vote  in  the  old  way 
for  party  purpose  or  for  a  machine  candidate, 
we  would  have  stopped  him  and  said:  "Stop, 
sir.  That  vote  in  your  hand  is  not  yours  to 
give.  It  belongs  to  the  people  of  this  State, 
and  they  told  you  for  whom  they  wish  it  cast. 
We  protest  against  your  intention  and  deny 
your  moral  right  to  bestow  it  against  the  peo- 
ple's wUl.  We  know  the  voice  we  hear  plead- 
ing for  a  strict  party  vote  is  the  voice  of  Jacob, 
but  the  hands  are  the  hands  of  Esau." 

At  this  period  Theodore  Roosevelt  met 
George  E.  Chamberlain,  the  Democratic  choice 
of  the  people,  and  the  great  President  said: 
"I  am  glad  to  see  you.  Governor  Chamberlain, 
and  senator-to-be.  I  would  have  preferred  to 
have  a  Republican  come  from  Oregon,  but  I 
stand  for  the  right  of  the  people  to  rule;  and 
therefore  I  want  to  see  you  elected  senator." 
What  a  contrast  is  this  sentiment  from  that 
of  the  small  politicians  who  were  trying  to 
scheme  out  some  plot  to  defeat  the  people's 
will! 

I  was  present  in  the  Capitol  at  Salem  on 
that  day,  making  the  opening  prayer  at  the 
joint  session  of  the  Legislature.  I  heard  the 
roll  called,  and  every  man  in  both  Houses  who 
had  taken  statement  number  one  pledge,  stood 
up  and  voted  for  the  people's  choice  regardless 

126 


THE  LATEST  EVOLUTION 

of  party  politics.  Every  man  of  them  stood 
with  the  people  and  voted  as  they  were  in- 
structed. It  is  safe  to  go  up  or  down  with 
the  people  of  this  country.  They  will  be  here 
doing  business  at  the  old  stand  when  the  cor- 
ruptionists  who  seek  to  entice  them  to  betray 
their  trusts,  only  to  forsake  them  in  their 
weakness  and  folly  and  shame,  are  all  forgot- 
ten. It  is  a  great  tribute  we  pay  to  the  average 
morality  and  loyalty  of  Oregon  men  when  we 
state  this  fact.  For  loyalty  to  principle  is 
higher  than  loyalty  to  party.  The  first  is 
founded  upon  the  eternal  verities  of  nature 
and  nature's  God,  the  second  upon  the  shift- 
ing sands  of  political  policies.  Far  above  any 
flickering  light  or  battle  lantern  of  party  is  the 
Everlasting  Sun  of  Righteousness  in  whose 
beauties  are  the  duties  of  men. 

The  Modern  Magna  Chabta 

It  is  significant  that  in  a  far  Western  State 
there  should  have  been  evolved  the  outstand- 
ing characteristics  of  the  best  system  of  popu- 
lar government  known.  First  the  Australian 
ballot  system  was  adopted  to  secure  honesty 
in  elections.  An  effective  registration  law  fol- 
lowed, which  guards  the  integrity  of  the  privi- 
lege of  American  citizenship — participation  in 
government.  Then  came  the  direct  primary, 
127 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF  DEMOCRACY 

which  absolutely  insures  popular  selection  of 
all  candidates,  and  establishes  the  responsibil- 
ity of  the  public  servant  to  the  electorate,  and 
not  to  any  political  boss  or  special  interest  or 
convention.  Plainly  stated,  the  aim  and  pur- 
pose of  these  laws  was  to  destroy  the  irrespon- 
sible political  machine  and  to  put  all  elective 
officers  in  the  State  in  direct  touch  with  the 
people  as  the  real  source  of  authority ;  to  give 
full  force  to  the  ballot  of  every  individual 
elector,  and  to  eliminate  dominance  of  cor- 
porate and  corrupt  influences  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  public  affairs.  The  Oregon  laws 
marked  the  course  that  must  be  pursued  be- 
fore the  wrongful  use  of  corporate  power  can 
be  dethroned,  the  people  restored  to  power, 
and  lasting  reform  secured.  They  insure  ab- 
solute government  by  the  people. 

In  all  this  modern  movement  to  put  the 
power  of  government  back  in  the  hands  of  the 
people  Oregon  has  been  a  leader.  Her  initia- 
tive and  referendum  became  the  keystone  of 
the  arch  of  popular  government.  Under  it, 
if  a  certain  percentage  of  the  voters — say  ten 
per  cent — sign  a  petition  for  a  law,  and  file 
it  with  the  proper  officials,  the  law  is  published 
by  the  State  in  a  State  book  of  measures  and 
mailed  as  a  State  campaign  document.  In  it 
arguments  on  both  sides  of  each  proposition 

128 


THE  LATEST  EVOLUTION 

may  be  presented  by  the  individual  or  com- 
mittee responsible  for  bringing  up  the  measure 
and  by  the  one  who  would  be  affected  should 
the  measure  pass.  This  book  is  mailed  by  the 
State  to  every  registered  voter  and  becomes  the 
political  Bible  of  the  Oregonian  for  the  cam- 
paign months;  and  though  I  have  known  the 
State  to  vote  on  thirty- two  measures  at  one 
election,  the  average  man  could  discuss  every 
one,  giving  the  pros  and  cons  of  the  argu- 
ments with  the  ease  of  a  practiced  lawyer.  The 
educational  value  of  this  experiment  in  gov- 
ernment is  limitless. 

The  initiative  is  defined  as  the  giving  of  the 
people  the  right  to  propose  legislation  which 
is  to  be  acted  upon,  properly  designated  on  the 
oflScial  ballot.  Every  measure  is  voted  upon 
by  "Yes"  or  "No."  A  majority  of  one  "Yes" 
makes  it  the  people's  law. 

The  referendum  is  the  method  of  referring  all 
legislation  to  the  people  for  their  final  ac- 
ceptance or  rejection.  As  generally  advocated 
it  requires  that  no  law  save  a  strictly  defined 
class  of  urgent  measures  for  the  public  peace, 
health,  and  safety,  which  usually  must  have  a 
two-thirds  majority  to  pass,  shall  go  into  ef- 
fect without  waiting  a  fixed  time,  say  ninety 
days.  If  during  this  time  a  part  of  the  voters 
— say  ten  per  cent — sign  a  petition  for  a  refer- 
129 


THE   DIVINE  RIGHT   OF  DEMOCRACY 

endum  on  that  law  it  will  not  go  into  effect 
until  the  next  regular  election,  when  the  people 
vote  on  it,  and  if  a  majority  vote  "No,"  it  is 
as  though  never  enacted. 

The  referendum  measures  are  divided  into 
optional  referendum  referred  on  the  basis  of  a 
petition  for  it,  or  compulsory  referendum, 
where  the  law  requires  that  legislation  of  that 
subject  matter  be  referred  to  the  people  with 
or  without  their  petition. 

The  initiative  and  the  referendum  provided 
for  what  is  known  as  direct  legislation  by  the 
people  rather  than  indirect  or  legislation 
through  representatives,  and  in  some  States 
the  people  have  taken  over  so  much  of  the 
power  of  making  and  unmaking  laws,  electing 
and  recalling  officers,  that  the  phrase  popular 
versus  representative  government  has  come  to 
be  a  standard  of  measurement. 

The  next  great  forward  step  in  restoring  to 
the  people  the  rights  of  self-government  was 
the  adoption  of  a  Corrupt  Practices  Act,  which 
prevents  any  abuse  under  the  initiative  and 
referendum,  direct  primary  or  the  recall.  It 
was  such  a  provision  recently  invoked  in  Min- 
nesota, where  a  candidate  ran  in  the  primary 
against  A.  J.  Volstead,  author  of  our  prohi- 
bition law.  He  made  a  campaign  against  him, 
asserting  that  he  was  an  atheist,  and  unfor- 

130 


thp:  latest  evolution 

tunately  won  the  Republican  primary  on  that 
false  charge.  But  there  is  a  provision  that  if 
any  man  secures  for  himself  a  nomination  or 
election  to  a  position  of  emolument  or  honor 
on  a  false  charge  against  his  opponent,  the 
courts  shall  set  the  election  aside.  Mr.  Vol- 
stead came  into  the  court  and  proved  that  he 
was  a  Christian,  a  church  member,  and  fre- 
quently made  addresses  in  the  churches  around 
Washington,  and  the  result  of  the  primary  was 
set  aside.  Volstead  was  nominated  by  his 
party  and  triumphantly  reelected. 

The  recall  is  a  plan  by  which  the  people, 
having  trusted  any  man  with  one  of  their  of- 
fices, can  upon  learning  that  he  has  been  un- 
faithful in  the  discharge  of  duty,  has  been 
corrupt,  or  drunk,  or  treacherous,  or  unmind- 
ful of  the  people,  be  removed  by  them  as  easily 
as  he  was  elected  by  them;  the  theory  being 
that  any  power  that  has  the  right  to  employ 
for  its  own  service  ought  to  have  the  right  to 
discharge  for  a  failure  to  render  the  service. 

The  sensitiveness  which  has  been  displayed 
in  the  mortal  dread  of  what  is  known  as  the  re- 
call applied  to  judges,  has  never  in  America 
experienced  a  single  fact  to  justify  it.  There 
is  no  logical  reason  why  the  courts  should  not 
be  wdthin  the  power  of  the  sovereign  people  as 
well  as  their  executive  and  legislative  depart- 

131 


THE   DIVINE   EIGHT   OF  DEMOCRACY 

ments.  What  is  there  about  judges  that  makes 
them  so  sacred  that  the  people  who  elected 
them  and  pay  them  and  submit  to  their  de- 
cisions should  not  discharge  them  if  they  be- 
tray the  people's  trust?  They  are  all  lawyers  I 
Oregon  has  had  this  system  for  fifteen  years 
and  has  never  proposed  to  use  it  upon  one 
judge,  but  that  does  not  prove  that  the  system 
is  not  needed.  It  is  an  admonitory  or  precau- 
tionary measure  the  existence  of  which  pre- 
vents the  necessity  for  its  use.  But  it  is  an 
essential  feature  of  the  complete  system  of 
popular  government  and  puts  the  fear  of  God 
upon  those  who  are  no  sooner  in  office  than 
they  adopt  the  creed  of  a  certain  Tammany 
leader,  "The  public  be  damned." 

These  reforms  are  essential  to  adapt  a  gov- 
ernment to  modern  civilization  and  should  be 
adopted  quickly  by  the  States,  that  our  laws 
may  conform  to  our  present  needs  as  the  bark 
of  a  growing  tree  expands  with  the  swelling 
trunk.  Any  reform  which  brings  the  govern- 
ment nearer  the  heart  of  the  people  and  the 
convictions  of  the  people  to  bear  directly  upon 
legislation  and  law  enforcement  is  not  only 
good  American  doctrine,  but  it  is  divine  doc- 
trine, for  it  is  in  harmony  with  Him  who  said, 
"Let  us  make  man  in  our  image,  .  .  .  and  let 
them  have  dominion.'' 

132 


THE  LATEST  EVOLUTION 

Those  States  that  have  adopted  all  this  para- 
phernalia of  popular  government  have  been 
the  first  to  secure  the  commission  plan  for 
their  cities,  ^ith  amazingly  good  results  in 
almost  every  place.  Under  the  old  system  with 
a  city  council  of  politicians  having  no  sense 
of  responsibility  to  their  own  constituents,  our 
government  became  so  corrupt  that  in  a  thou- 
sand cities  the  council  w  as  the  sore  spot  of  the 
place.  The  old  order  has  been  superseded  by 
the  Galveston  plan  of  electing  a  mayor  who 
supervises  the  business  and  the  executive  work 
of  the  city  and  placing  a  responsible  head,  not 
to  represent  each  ward,  but  to  represent  the 
city  as  a  whole  in  the  management  of  a  given 
department  for  which  he  is  held  responsible. 
This  more  nearly  resembles  the  President's 
Cabinet,  making  each  man  the  head  of  a  de- 
partment, locating  responsibility  and  eliminat- 
ing that  collective  body  of  irresponsible  poli- 
ticians we  used  to  call  the  city  council. 

The  Common  People  to  the  Rescue 

The  present  representative  system  is  weak 
in  both  theory  and  practice.  It  interposes  an 
easily  corrupted  Legislature  between  the  peo- 
ple and  their  law  and  likewise  places  a  politi- 
cal party,  no  less  easily  corrupted,  and  made 
up  in  its  managing  members  of  those  who  de- 
133 


THE   DIVINE   EIGHT   OF  DEMOCRACY 

pend  upon  their  party  connections  for  daily 
bread,  and  consequently  hold  their  honor  and 
their  loyalty  to  the  people  cheaper  than  the 
price  daily  offered  by  the  monopolist  and  the 
saloonist.  The  good  citizen,  on  the  contrary, 
can  exercise  little  influence  in  politics  or  gov- 
ernment, his  activities  being  engrossed  in  the 
business  of  making  a  living. 

The  initiative  and  referendum,  however,  is 
no  longer  an  experiment.  The  people  have 
shown  themselves  qualified  to  elect  and  legis- 
late for  themselves.  They  have  passed  upon 
thirty-eight  charter  amendments  in  one  city 
at  one  time  with  a  discrimination  that  would 
have  been  a  credit  to  any  legislative  body  that 
ever  assembled  in  that  State.  Their  intelli- 
gence and  honesty  have  been  brought  directly 
to  bear  upon  the  machine  of  government  by 
the  new  system.  The  collective  citizen  holds 
no  caucus,  feels  the  lash  of  no  party  whip,  fears 
no  monopoly.  He  is  free  to  vote  his  best  con- 
viction without  fear  or  favor  and  is  less  in- 
fluenced by  party  prejudice  than  ever  before. 
The  recall  puts  us  in  close  touch  with  our 
public  servants.  They  are  within  commanding 
distance  and  subject  to  discharge  for  disobe- 
dience. If  we  are  going  to  direct  the  job,  we 
want  to  be  able  to  reach  our  employee. 

The  people  enjoy  the  direct  exercise  of  their 

134 


THE  LATEST  EVOLUTION 

sovereignty.  They  have  power;  they  can  get 
things  done ;  effort  is  worth  while.  The  system 
is  a  great  educator  and  infuses  the  average 
citizen  with  courage  and  interest  in  public  af- 
fairs. The  farmer  or  fisherman  out  in  my 
State  can  discuss  law  and  politics  with  you 
and  keep  you  busy.  They  study  every  measure 
and  the  arguments  for  and  against.  They  can 
get  honest  legislation,  for  there  is  no  infidelity 
in  the  collective  citizen  body,  and  its  judg- 
ments are  sound  and  its  collective  honesty 
complete.  It  has  sober  sense,  rational  mental 
processes,  and  its  purposes  are  exalted.  The 
whole  trend  of  legislation  by  the  electorate  is 
social,  economic,  progressive,  and  reformatory, 
while  the  tendency  of  their  legislature  is  to 
be  machine  controlled,  self -centered,  and  cor- 
rupt. Wherever  the  people  have  been  given 
the  means  of  control  in  lieu  of  proxy  govern- 
ment the  State  has  been  purified,  and  laws  that 
have  been  needed  for  a  thousand  years  and 
never  could  be  passed  anywhere  were  passed 
the  first  time  they  were  proposed  in  Oregon. 
For  instance,  civil  suits  are  settled  by  a  three- 
fourths  jury  vote,  which  is  just  as  safe  and  saves 
the  taxpayers'  money  on  new  trials.  The 
many  are  wiser  than  any  one.  Everybody 
knows  more  than  anybody. 

One  inherent  and  peculiar  merit  of  the  sys- 

135 


THE   DIVINE   EIGHT   OF  DEMOCRACY 

tern  is  that  if  the  policy  is  adopted  and  proves 
unsuccessful,  the  initiative,  referendum,  and 
recall  can  be  repealed  under  their  own  pro- 
visions, thus  providing  an  easy  and  certain 
remedy  by  which  the  entire  law  or  any  of  its 
provisions  can  be  modified  or  eliminated  alto- 
gether. 

Laws  proposed  under  the  initiative  are  not 
subject  to  amendment  and  therefore  must  be 
carefully  drawn  to  stand  the  scrutiny  of  the 
entire  State  for  a  four  months'  campaign.  If 
errors  or  jokers  are  discovered,  they  are  in- 
variably voted  down.  Legislative  blackmail 
and  grants  of  special  privilege  are  made  impos- 
sible by  the  referendum.  People  act  with  care 
and  caution  and  with  that  spirit  of  fairness 
that  characterizes  the  man  who  earns  his  liv- 
ing and  acquires  his  property  by  legitimate 
means. 

As  a  voting  citizen  of  Oregon  for  sixteen 
years  I  look  back  over  the  course  of  the  com- 
mon people's  supremacy  with  absolute  admira- 
tion. They  have  elected  many  United  States 
senators,  first  weeding  out  the  unfit  and  un- 
worthy, nominating  the  best  men  that  ever 
ran  for  of&ce,  men  infinitely  better  than  the 
convention  system  ever  produced.  They  have 
elected  thousands  of  city,  county,  and  muni- 
cipal officers,  and  our  State  was  never  so  well 

136 


THE  LATEST  EVOLUTION 

represented  in  the  personnel  of  its  public  men 
as  in  these  years.  They  have  passed  upon  lit- 
erally hundreds  of  measures,  and  if  they  have 
erred,  blundered,  or  failed  to  discriminate,  I 
am  unable  to  cite  the  instance.  Of  course  they 
differed  from  me  sometimes,  but  they  knew 
what  they  wanted  and  why. 

I  recall  one  instance  of  surprise.  It  was  in 
1908.  The  lower  river  men  had  gotten  up  a 
bill  to  restrict  the  fishermen  on  the  Upper 
Columbia.  The  Upper  Columbia  men  retali- 
ated by  preparing  a  complicated  bill  designed 
to  prohibit  fishing  at  the  mouth  of  the  river. 
I  had  studied  all  the  measures  but  these  two. 
Standing  in  the  voting  booth,  this  meditation 
came :  "I  don't  understand  the  relative  merits 
of  these  two  bills;  each  crowd  is  trying  to  re- 
strict the  other.  They  seem  to  agree  on  the 
principle  of  restriction.  I  will  vote  for  both 
bills."  Imagine  my  surprise  when  I  found 
that  fifty  thousand  other  voters  were  as  sharp 
as  I  was,  and  had  overwhelmingly  carried  both 
bills  and  given  the  fish  a  rest ! 

In  1910  the  people  thought  they  could  use 
the  State  initiative  to  get  through  county  di- 
visions. Nine  such  bills  were  presented.  The 
people  resented  this  dragging  of  local  matters 
into  a  State  contest  and  voted  every  one  down 
by  a  vote  of  from  ten  or  twenty  to  one.  The 
137 


THE   DIVINE   EIGHT   OF  DEMOCRACY 

conservatism  of  the  electorate  is  proven  by  the 
fact  that  of  the  thirty-two  measures  presented 
on  the  ballot  in  1910  just  nine  were  adopted, 
while  the  general  interest  of  the  people  in  the 
measures  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  an  average 
of  seventy-five  per  cent  of  the  qualified  voters 
acted  on  them.  There  has  never  been  general 
dissatisfaction  as  a  result  of  a  vote.  The  plan 
has  been  found  inexpensive.  You  could  put 
one  hundred  measures  on  the  ballot  and  edu- 
cate the  people  in  the  State  on  all  the  measures 
cheaper  than  you  could  maintain  a  Legislature 
in  existence  until  they  were  thrashed  out. 

Then  it  has  corrected  so  many  old  abuses. 
Our  Legislature  once  rejected  a  corporation 
franchise  tax  law,  but  the  people  at  once  had 
power  to  pass  it  by  the  referendum.  The  Legis- 
lature rejected  a  direct  primary  law,  but  the 
people  at  once  adopted  it  by  a  vote  of  more 
than  three  and  a  half  to  one.  The  Legislature 
rejected  a  corrupt  practices  act,  but  the  people 
adopted  it  overwhelmingly.  I  recall  that  the 
Home  Telephone  System  wanted  to  come  into 
Portland,  and  because  of  the  poor  service  and 
insolence  of  the  old  monopoly  the  folks  desired 
it,  but  the  old  corporation  made  its  signs  to 
the  city  council  and  a  charter  for  the  new  com- 
pany was  refused.  By  the  following  election 
the  people  had  the  initiative  and  they  gave  a 

138 


THE  LATEST  EVOLUTION 

charter  to  the  new  company  by  a  vote  of  six- 
teen to  one,  which  proportion  may  recall 
sacred  memories  to  some.  The  knowledge 
that  the  electorate  can  take  a  given  matter 
into  its  hands  if  the  Legislature  is  recreant 
has  proven  the  best  corrective  of  the  abuses 
that  have  sprung  up  in  representative  govern- 
ment. 

Think  of  States  like  Pennsylvania  and  New 
Jersey,  where  up  to  the  adoption  of  the  Eigh- 
teenth Amendment,  the  sovereign  people  did 
not  have  the  poor  privilege  of  voting  "Yes" 
or  "No"  on  local  option  for  their  county,  or 
prohibition  for  their  State. 

Amid  the  complexities  of  modern  civiliza- 
tion the  people  have  no  time  for  that  eternal 
vigilance  which  is  the  price  of  liberty  under  the 
old  system,  where  you  must  go  to  caucus  and 
watch  the  game  with  sleepless  vigilance,  and 
then  be  thwarted  by  the  men  who  have  nothing 
else  to  do  but  scheme  out  politics.  Give  us 
a  government  where  the  average  man  can 
exert  a  direct  control  on  nominations  in  the 
primaries  and  in  the  elections  upon  the  selec- 
tion of  officers,  and  the  making  of  laws,  and 
then  the  people  rule. 

Let  us  not  stay  or  hinder  popular  govern- 
ment on  its  road  to  the  throne  of  power,  but 
aid  to  our  utmost  that  evolution  in  our  system 

139 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF  DEMOCRACY 

which  links  every  department — legislative,  ju- 
dicial, and  executive — indissolubly  with  the 
power  that  is  responsible  for  it,  the  people 
themselves.  In  the  complicated  needs  and  per- 
plexities of  our  time  every  State  in  our  Union 
ought  to  have  the  whole  Oregon  system  of  re- 
forms, "that  government  of  the  people,  by  the 
people,  and  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish 
from  the  earth." 


y 


140 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Many  years  ago  I  was  thrown  into  intimate  con- 
tact with  that  philosopher  and  great  original  expos- 
itor of  Scriptures,  the  Rev.  I.  D.  Driver,  pioneer  in 
the  Oregon  country.  He  called  my  attention  in 
many  conversations  to  the  parallel  between  the 
Hebrew  commonwealth  and  our  own  nation.  I  owe 
the  seed  thought  which  has  developed  into  the  first 
chapter  of  this  book  to  his  initiative  and  information, 
and  eighteen  years  of  subsequent  investigation  has 
confirmed  me  in  the  belief  in  that  parallel  which  he 
pointed  out. 

(Works  read  or  consulted  in  the  preparation  of 
this  volume) 

United  States  Constitutional  History  and  Law. 

Albert  H.  Putney,  1908. 
Sources  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

C.  E.  Stevens. 
The   Oroicth  of  the  Constitution.     William   H. 

Meigs, 
The  Origin  of  Republican  Forms  of  Oovernment. 

Oscar  S.  Straus. 
The  American  People:  Planting  of  a  Nation..  A. 

Maurice  Lowe. 
The  American  People:  The  Harvesting  of  a  Na- 
tion.   A.  Maurice  Lowe. 
A  Treatise  on  American  Citizenship.     John  S. 

Wise,  190U. 

141 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF  DEMOCRACY 

Legal  Maxims  and  Commentary  on  the  Law. 
Broom. 

The  Evolution  of  the  Law:  A  Historical  Remetc. 
Henry  W.  Scott. 

A  History  of  tJie  Development  of  the  Law.  M.  F. 
Morris. 

The  Puritan  in  Holland,  England,  and  America. 
Douglas  Campbell. 

Leading  Cases  Simplified.  (Criminal  Law,  Com- 
mon Law,  Equity.)    3  vols.    John  D.  Lawson. 

Criminal  Law.  (Contracts,  Kon-Contracts,  Mar- 
riage, and  Divorce.)  2  vols.   Bishop. 

Principles  of  the  American  Law.  2  vols.  William 
Raimond  Baird. 

International  Law.    I.  D.  Woolsey. 

Principles  of  the  Constitution:  Constitutional 
Limitations.     Thomas  M.  Cooley. 

Biblical  Lectures.    I.  D.  Driver. 

The  Social  Institutions  and  Ideals  of  the  Bible. 
Theodore  Gerald  Soares. 

Sociological  Study  of  the  Bible.    Louis  Wallia. 

Constitutional  and  Parliamentary  History  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  James  M.  Buck- 
ley. 

Ecclesiastical  Law.  Revised  Edition.  Henry  and 
Harris. 

Digest  of  Methodist  Law.  Bishop  Stephen  M. 
Merrill.    Revised  by  David  G.  Do\STiey. 

A  Guide  in  the  Administration  of  the  Discipline. 
Osmon  C.  Baker, 

Judicial  Decisions  of  the  General  Conference.  R. 
J.  Cooke. 

Law  of  Evidence.    Sir  James  FitzJames  Stephen. 

The  Law  of  Evidence.   2  vols.   W.  N.  Best. 

142 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Practical  Christian  Sociology.    Wilbur  F.  Crafts. 

Digest  of  Evidence.    T.  W.  Hughes. 

The  Law  of  Evidence.    2  vols.    Simon  Green  leaf. 

A  Dictionary  of  Law,  Judicial  DeciMona  and  Ex- 
planations.   William  C.  Anderson. 

American  Democracy  Yersus  Prussian  Ma/rxism. 
Clarence  F.  Birdseye, 

Steps  in  the  Development  of  American  Democ- 
racy.   Andrew  Cunningham  McLaughlin. 

An  Abridgment  of  Kent's  Commentaries  of  Amer- 
ican Law.    Eben  Francis  Thompson. 

The  American  Spirit.    Oscar  S.  Straus. 

The  Science  of  Power.    Benjamin  Kidd. 

Have  Faith  in  Massachusetts.    Calvin  Coolidge. 

Americanism  Versus  Bolshevism.    01  e  Hanson. 

Democracy   and   the    Church.     Samuel    George 
Smith. 

Fear  Ood  and  Take  Tonr  Own  Part.     Theodore 
Roosevelt. 

The  Battle  of  Principles.    Newell  Dwight  Hillis. 

Social  Welfare  and  the  Liquor  Traffic.    Harry  S. 
W^amer. 

The  Star  of  the  West.    Polemus  Hamilton  Swift. 

Supremacy  of  Law.    Bishop  John  P.  Newman. 

The  Control  of  the  Drink  Traffic.     (England.) 
Henry  Carter. 

Cyclopedia  of  Temperance,  Prohibition,  and  Pub- 
lic Morals.    Deets  Pickett,  Editor, 

The  Problem  of  Gambling.    E.  Benson  Perkins. 

The  United  States  A  Christian  Nation.    David  J. 
Brewer. 

Christianity  and  the   United  States.     John  F. 
Goucher. 

143 


THE   DIVINE   RIGHT   OF   DEMOCRACY 

TTie  Power  of  Ideal  in  American  Hi^tori/. 
Ephraim  Douglas  Adams. 

America  in  the  Making.    Lyman  Abbott. 

Conditions  of  Progress  in  Democratic  Govern- 
ment.   Charles  H.  Hughes. 

Four  Aspects  of  Civil  Duty.  William  Howard 
Taft. 

Moral  Law  and  Civil  Law.    Eli  F.  Ritter. 

The  Legalized  Outlaic.    Samuel  K.  Artman. 

The  Logic  of  Prohihitian.     Matthew  S.  Hughes. 

Sunday  the  True  Sahhath  of  Ood.  Sewall  Walter 
Gamble. 

Our  Military  History.    Leonard  Wood. 

The  Book  of  Freemen.    Julius  F.  Seebach. 

My  Neighbor  the  Working  Man.    James  R.  Day. 

The  Peace  Negotiations.    Robert  Lansing. 


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